G B: There are some build instructions on the wiki. I also put some notes together here https://gist.github.com/aszeszo/2855864 when building and rebuilding upstream repositories as an experiment. Note that the repos referenced in the gist were not synced with upstream in almost a year. Build commands should apply to OI repos on hg.openindiana.org though.
Andrzej On 8 May 2013 01:11, Alasdair Lumsden <alasdai...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > Basically there is nobody left working on the project that I know of apart > from Jon Tibble (Meths on irc), who doesn't seem to respond on the mailing > lists much, and Milan Jurik who was working on a JDS update. Neither Jon > nor Milan have opted to take on leadership status from what I know, so this > whole project is a "ghost project" - there's a website, a wiki, a download > page, and a package server, but there isn't really anyone here except a few > caretakers who occasionally trim the hedges and mow the lawn but mostly > keeps to themselves. > > There isn't really any single document describing how to "build" OI - it's > not an easy task. Under Sun, OpenSolaris was built from a collection of > consolidations, a consolidation being a logical grouping of software, and > OI inherited this. For example there was: > > onnv-gate: Kernel + Core Userland. This is what illumos is today - they > forked the last open release of onnv-gate, onnv_147. > > sfw-gate: Sun Freeware - collection of open source utilities. Uses GNU > Makefiles for building. Like a poor implementation of FreeBSD ports/pkgsrc. > > userland-gate: A replacement for SFW, with a tidier better IPS-ized build > system. Also uses GNU Makefiles. Similar to FreeBSD ports tree or pkgsrc. > oi-build is a clone of userland-gate, and we wanted oi-build to take over > from all the other consolidations. > > xnv-gate: The X.Org consolidation, maintained at Oracle by Alan > Coopersmith. > > pkg-gate: The IPS software consolidation. > > vpanels: The visual panels thing. > > Caiman: The installer. > > JDS: The Java Desktop system, based on spec-files technology. Also known > as the "gnome" consolidation as it's where gnome lives. Also contains > Firefox/Thunderbird/Evolution/etc. > > g11n: The internationalisation consolidation with localisation > text/strings for apps > > admin/sic_team/solaris_re/etc - Misc other stuff. > > You can see the various consolidation source repos here: > > https://hg.openindiana.org/ > > Under Sun, each consolidation was managed by a whole team, many of which > were in different geographical locations. As far as I know, JDS was done by > Sun India, pkg-gate by staff in Ireland. Each consolidation uses different > build systems, each with their own pros and cons, but all requiring quite a > lot of domain specific knowledge, with very little documentation provided > to get started. > > Every 2 weeks these consolidations would be delivered to the Solaris > Release Engineering team, who would assemble things together to put out a > release. Some of the consolidations produce IPS package repos, some of them > produce bundles of SVR4 packages which have to be converted to IPS packages > using the distro_import utility. Then everything has to be merged together, > then distro-constructor would be run to spit out the installable ISO image. > > So you can see, we're talking about a major engineering effort for each > release. Sun had loads of staff, so it wasn't an issue. OI however had a > small number of volunteers, such as myself, Andrzej Szeszo, Albert Lee, Jon > Tibble, etc. We put in an extraordinarily large amount of hours to figure > out how it all worked, it took months and months of scratching our heads > and hacking away to get stuff to build, and a big push to get the first OI > release done, oi_147, and then the subsequent releases oi_148 and oi_151. > > I had a grand plan to try to unify all the separate consolidations into > what I considered the "best" one, userland-gate, under the name oi-build. I > didn't get very far. Nexenta wanted to ditch using the Debian userland in > favour of something native, so asked to collaborate with us on oi-build, so > it got renamed -illumos-userland. However politics, infighting and a > general lack of communication/direction/sanity within Nexenta led to it > being stillborn. People got frustrated, bored, and lost interest, including > myself. Then I quit, and almost everyone else seems to be working on other > things now. > > So we're left with a dead project, apart from the work Jon Tibble is doing > to periodically update oi_151 with a new illumos-gate release, along with > some package updates and fixes as he finds time. > > If you want to "build OI", you need to understand that there is no single > way to build the whole OS, there is no equivalent of, for example, > FreeBSD's "make buildworld". Each consolidation would have to be built > separately, then merged with distro_import. > > If you just want to update a single package, you could identify what > consolidation the software you want to update lives in (which you can see > in the packages metadata, for example "set > name=org.opensolaris.consolidation value=gnome" indicates the JDS > consolidation). Then build that consolidation (or just the package in > question). But if any other software depends on what you're updating, you > have to rebuild it, and that often crosses consolidation boundaries. > > If I had more time and motivation I still think it would be worth sorting > the OI mess out, but time and motivation are in very short supply. I > started OI because our business used OpenSolaris and we needed a follow on > OS to use after Oracle discontinued releases. But then Joyent released > SmartOS, which is designed for cloud computing, so we use that - it would > be stupid not to. There was then no requirement for me to continue working > on OI. > > OmniTI decided that the mess Sun left behind with OpenSolaris was too > horrific to even contemplate working with so created their OS from scratch.I > think it would have been beneficial for illumos to have a strong general > purpose OS with a good desktop, such as OI, but most of the ex-Sun > engineers were very hostile to our effort. I think they shot themselves in > the foot by not giving us more support. But other desktop distros based on > illumos are emerging, such as Tribblix, so natural selection will take its > course. > > I don't personally see a bright future for OI unless a smart, committed > new leader steps up and drums up renewed excitement for sorting everything > out. Jon and Milan might do micro-updates, but unless they or other people > step up to work on all the other areas of the project, such as drumming up > interest, marketing, PR, helping new developers on board, it's never going > to get very far. > > Alasdair > > > _______________________________________________ > oi-dev mailing list > oi-dev@openindiana.org > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev >
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