Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!

2019-10-03 Thread Ben Hutchings
On Sun, 2019-07-21 at 10:55 -0300, Ivo De Decker wrote:
> Hi Ben,
> 
> Sorry for not getting back to you about this earlier.
> 
> On 7/7/19 3:43 PM, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Sun, 2019-07-07 at 02:47 +0100, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:
> > [...]
> > > No binary maintainer uploads for bullseye
> > > =
> > > 
> > > The release of buster also means the bullseye release cycle is about to 
> > > begin.
> > >  From now on, we will no longer allow binaries uploaded by maintainers to
> > > migrate to testing. This means that you will need to do source-only 
> > > uploads if
> > > you want them to reach bullseye.
> > 
> > I support this move in principle, but:
> > 
> > >Q: I already did a binary upload, do I need to do a new (source-only) 
> > > upload?
> > >A: Yes (preferably with other changes, not just a version bump).
> > > 
> > >Q: I needed to do a binary upload because my upload went to the NEW 
> > > queue,
> > >   do I need to do a new (source-only) upload for it to reach bullseye?
> > >A: Yes. We also suggest going through NEW in experimental instead of 
> > > unstable
> > >   where possible, to avoid disruption in unstable.
> > [...]
> > 
> > This is not going to fly for src:linux.  We can't stage ABI bumps in
> > experimental as we typically have a different upstream versions in
> > unstable and experimental.  We even need to do ABI bumps in stable from
> > time to time.
> 
> We are aware that src:linux is a special case here. I added an exception 
> for the arch:all binaries from src:linux. When the next ABI bump in 
> unstable happens, feel free to let me know, so that I can check if it 
> works as expected.

linux version 5.2.17-1 was the first version that included an ABI bump
and did not have any regressions that blocked it from testing.  It has
transitioned to testing including the developer-built arch:all
packages, so I believe that this exception works.  Thank you!

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Unix is many things to many people,
but it's never been everything to anybody.




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Re: process-upload issue (was: Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!)

2019-08-11 Thread Ben Hutchings
On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 19:25 +0100, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> [CC += ftpmaster]
> 
> On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 17:49 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Sun, 2019-07-21 at 10:55 -0300, Ivo De Decker wrote:
> > [...]
> > > We are aware that src:linux is a special case here. I added an
> > > exception for the arch:all binaries from src:linux. When the next
> > > ABI bump in unstable happens, feel free to let me know, so that I
> > > can check if it works as expected.
> > 
> > I uploaded a new version (5.2.6-1) to unstable today (11:35 UTC), and
> > the upload was acknowledged (11:40 UTC) but it hasn't yet showed up
> > in the NEW queue.
> 
> That looks like a problem on the archive side. The dak log suggests an
> issue logging an issue with a .changes file:
> 
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|Traceback (most recent call last):
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File "/usr/local/bin/dak", line 
> 228, in main
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|module.main()
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File 
> "/srv/ftp-master.debian.org/dak/dak/process_upload.py", line 591, in main
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|process_changes(changes_files)
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File 
> "/srv/ftp-master.debian.org/dak/dak/process_upload.py", line 502, in 
> process_changes
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|Logger.log([filename, "Error 
> while loading changes: {0}".format(e)])
> 20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec 
> can't encode character u'\ufffd' in position 223: ordinal not in range(128)

Thanks for that.  Both my uploads last week seem to have been processed
successfully, but neither of them built on all release architectures so
we haven't yet been able to see whether the special case works.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Humour is the best antidote to reality.




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process-upload issue (was: Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!)

2019-08-05 Thread Adam D. Barratt
[CC += ftpmaster]

On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 17:49 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sun, 2019-07-21 at 10:55 -0300, Ivo De Decker wrote:
> [...]
> > We are aware that src:linux is a special case here. I added an
> > exception for the arch:all binaries from src:linux. When the next
> > ABI bump in unstable happens, feel free to let me know, so that I
> > can check if it works as expected.
> 
> I uploaded a new version (5.2.6-1) to unstable today (11:35 UTC), and
> the upload was acknowledged (11:40 UTC) but it hasn't yet showed up
> in the NEW queue.

That looks like a problem on the archive side. The dak log suggests an
issue logging an issue with a .changes file:

20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|Traceback (most recent call last):
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File "/usr/local/bin/dak", line 
228, in main
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|module.main()
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File 
"/srv/ftp-master.debian.org/dak/dak/process_upload.py", line 591, in main
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|process_changes(changes_files)
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|  File 
"/srv/ftp-master.debian.org/dak/dak/process_upload.py", line 502, in 
process_changes
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|Logger.log([filename, "Error 
while loading changes: {0}".format(e)])
20190805181929|process-upload|dak|exception|UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec 
can't encode character u'\ufffd' in position 223: ordinal not in range(128)

Regards,

Adam



Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!

2019-08-05 Thread Ben Hutchings
On Sun, 2019-07-21 at 10:55 -0300, Ivo De Decker wrote:
[...]
> We are aware that src:linux is a special case here. I added an exception 
> for the arch:all binaries from src:linux. When the next ABI bump in 
> unstable happens, feel free to let me know, so that I can check if it 
> works as expected.

I uploaded a new version (5.2.6-1) to unstable today (11:35 UTC), and
the upload was acknowledged (11:40 UTC) but it hasn't yet showed up in
the NEW queue.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers. - Leonard Brandwein




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Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!

2019-07-21 Thread Ivo De Decker

Hi Ben,

Sorry for not getting back to you about this earlier.

On 7/7/19 3:43 PM, Ben Hutchings wrote:

On Sun, 2019-07-07 at 02:47 +0100, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:
[...]

No binary maintainer uploads for bullseye
=

The release of buster also means the bullseye release cycle is about to begin.
 From now on, we will no longer allow binaries uploaded by maintainers to
migrate to testing. This means that you will need to do source-only uploads if
you want them to reach bullseye.


I support this move in principle, but:


   Q: I already did a binary upload, do I need to do a new (source-only) upload?
   A: Yes (preferably with other changes, not just a version bump).

   Q: I needed to do a binary upload because my upload went to the NEW queue,
  do I need to do a new (source-only) upload for it to reach bullseye?
   A: Yes. We also suggest going through NEW in experimental instead of unstable
  where possible, to avoid disruption in unstable.

[...]

This is not going to fly for src:linux.  We can't stage ABI bumps in
experimental as we typically have a different upstream versions in
unstable and experimental.  We even need to do ABI bumps in stable from
time to time.


We are aware that src:linux is a special case here. I added an exception 
for the arch:all binaries from src:linux. When the next ABI bump in 
unstable happens, feel free to let me know, so that I can check if it 
works as expected.


Thanks,

Ivo



Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!

2019-07-07 Thread Sam Hartman
> "Ben" == Ben Hutchings  writes:

Ben> On Sun, 2019-07-07 at 02:47 +0100, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:
Ben> [...]
>> No binary maintainer uploads for bullseye
>> =
>> 
>> The release of buster also means the bullseye release cycle is
>> about to begin.  From now on, we will no longer allow binaries
>> uploaded by maintainers to migrate to testing. This means that
>> you will need to do source-only uploads if you want them to reach
>> bullseye.

Ben> I support this move in principle, but:


Ben> This is not going to fly for src:linux.  We can't stage ABI
Ben> bumps in experimental as we typically have a different upstream
Ben> versions in unstable and experimental.  We even need to do ABI
Ben> bumps in stable from time to time.

Ben> I think that the requirement to upload binary packages for
Ben> binary-NEW (but not source-NEW) needs to go.

I agree with Ben.  There are a lot of good reasons to stage (possibly
even most) binary new packages through experimental.
Ben has talked about cases where experimental can't work.
I'd like to talk about cases where it is the wrong answer.

However, we've gotten a lot of feedback from our maintainers over the
years that anything that adds an extra round trip to their workflow is
significantly demotivating.
If I need to wait for something to go through new, and then after it
goes through new do an extra thing to accomplish my goal, that increases
the cost of what I'm doing significantly.

If it's a simple soname bump because of a new symbol, that doesn't
always require experimental.  Thinking back to my own experience with
krb5, I have a good handle on when ABI bumps need to go through
experimental and when things are going to be fine through unstable.  I
haven't made a lot of mistakes in that front--uploading things to
unstable that ended up being broken enough we wished they had gone
through experimental.

I know I'm not alone.

I think that for this to fly, binaries for binary new need to go.

I understand that balancing the trade offs here requires a bit of a mind
meld between the ftp team and the release team, and I understand that
cross team decision making is more complex here.
I'd be happy to facilitate any discussion around the trade offs if that
would be useful.

--Sam



Re: Bits from the Release Team: ride like the wind, Bullseye!

2019-07-07 Thread Ben Hutchings
On Sun, 2019-07-07 at 02:47 +0100, Jonathan Wiltshire wrote:
[...]
> No binary maintainer uploads for bullseye
> =
> 
> The release of buster also means the bullseye release cycle is about to begin.
> From now on, we will no longer allow binaries uploaded by maintainers to
> migrate to testing. This means that you will need to do source-only uploads if
> you want them to reach bullseye.

I support this move in principle, but:

>   Q: I already did a binary upload, do I need to do a new (source-only) 
> upload?
>   A: Yes (preferably with other changes, not just a version bump).
> 
>   Q: I needed to do a binary upload because my upload went to the NEW queue,
>  do I need to do a new (source-only) upload for it to reach bullseye?
>   A: Yes. We also suggest going through NEW in experimental instead of 
> unstable
>  where possible, to avoid disruption in unstable.
[...]

This is not going to fly for src:linux.  We can't stage ABI bumps in
experimental as we typically have a different upstream versions in
unstable and experimental.  We even need to do ABI bumps in stable from
time to time.

I think that the requirement to upload binary packages for binary-NEW
(but not source-NEW) needs to go.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Time is nature's way of making sure that
everything doesn't happen at once.




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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-09 Thread Chris Bannister
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:43:28PM -0500, Brian Nelson wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes:
> 
> > On Jan 04, Adam Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other 
> >> newer
> >> things newer kernels might require.
> > OTOH, old kernel are buggy and out of date wrt modern hardware, and we
> > lack the manpower to backport for years fixes and new features RHEL-style.
> > Do you have a better solution?
> 
> Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
> stable kernel tree, or something?

or http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/

-- 
Chris.
==
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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-05 Thread Adrian von Bidder
On Wednesday 04 January 2006 00.43, Brian Nelson wrote:

> Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
> stable kernel tree, or something?

The real nice thing would be a central mailing list where all kernel 
development were coordinated.  Perhaps some sort of industry-sponsored 
cooperation could be founded who could hire a few of the lead kernel 
developers, too.

Errm.  Sorry, couldn't resist.

But you're right, coordination could be closer - I think the new w.x.y.z 
stable upstream kernels are a good start in this direction.  I've no idea - 
how many of Debian's kernel people participate actively on lkml or some 
other non-distro-specific kernel development forum?  From afar (never 
looked at it closely), git should be able to help, too, by making it easier 
to move isolated patches between trees - some central index of proposed 
patches might be helpful, so that people wouldn't need to grep through -mm 
changelogs or similar (dunno, perhaps somebody's already written that.)

cheers
-- vbi

-- 
Es genügt nicht, daß man zur Sache spricht. Man muß zu den Menschen
sprechen.
-- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (eig. S. J. de Tusch-Letz)


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Sven Luther
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 01:11:00PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > For the installer, sure, but the generation of the d-i kernel .udebs is only
> > marginally of their relevance, and furthermore they don't want the
> > responsability associated with it, and as proof i can show you that joeyh
> > upgraded kernel-wedge and the x86 d-i module udebs, but didn't touch all the
> > other architectures, defaulting it upto the porters, which are the exact 
> > same
> > guys doing the kernel packages. So joeyh and fjp can't have it both way.
> 
> Um, I maintain kernel-wedge and linux-kernel-di-i386*. Not having access
> to every other architecture out there, and with some of the

There is absolutely no need for any architecture access to simply repackage
the modules into an .udeb. Absolutely no need.

> architectures that I do have access to suffering from unaddressed kernel
> bugs (ie #332962) that make my hardware for them useless for testing new
> d-i releases, as well as being limited to modem speeds, makes it
> difficult to maintain anything more.

So, what do you think d-i is so special that it deserve special attention, and
should not fall in the common case of debian kernel bugs ? Maybe you will in
the future start building your own kernels too ? 

It is just damn repackaging, nobody asks you to test anything at all.

> If you take a closer look at the commits in question, my changes were
> limited to kernel-wedge, which means the maintainers for other arches
> benefit from them. Probably the packages for other architectures can be
> updated with just a rebuild and simple testing, although it can be very

this has not been the case in the past, and you should simply have rebuilt and
uploaded them or something.

> hard to tell, since what hardware is common on which architectures, and
> thus which udebs it should go into, is not always easy to determine if

Indeed, which is why it is not needed to duplicate that process twice, once
when the kernel port maintainer choses which config option to include and
which not, and twice when you chose to include those modules in the .udebs or
not.

> you're not intamately familiar with the architecture. Which is a good
> reason to have maintainers who are, instead of me.

None, except for modules concerning the powerpc64 hypervisor and virtual scsi
stuff, of the upgrades that i did for powerpc since the sarge release needed
that kind of intimate knowledge. And all the changes i did, where mirrored on
x86 or something, and i lost maybe 2 hours or so each time time which i could
have spent doing useful work.

> Saying that this means I lack responsibility and am only interested in
> taking the easy way out is, again, insulting. 

No, but you cannot deny that both you and Franz have been ranting against the
porters not taking their duty seriously in the past, and this is one area
where you could make their time more worthwhile, but chose not to.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Joey Hess
Sven Luther wrote:
> For the installer, sure, but the generation of the d-i kernel .udebs is only
> marginally of their relevance, and furthermore they don't want the
> responsability associated with it, and as proof i can show you that joeyh
> upgraded kernel-wedge and the x86 d-i module udebs, but didn't touch all the
> other architectures, defaulting it upto the porters, which are the exact same
> guys doing the kernel packages. So joeyh and fjp can't have it both way.

Um, I maintain kernel-wedge and linux-kernel-di-i386*. Not having access
to every other architecture out there, and with some of the
architectures that I do have access to suffering from unaddressed kernel
bugs (ie #332962) that make my hardware for them useless for testing new
d-i releases, as well as being limited to modem speeds, makes it
difficult to maintain anything more.

If you take a closer look at the commits in question, my changes were
limited to kernel-wedge, which means the maintainers for other arches
benefit from them. Probably the packages for other architectures can be
updated with just a rebuild and simple testing, although it can be very
hard to tell, since what hardware is common on which architectures, and
thus which udebs it should go into, is not always easy to determine if
you're not intamately familiar with the architecture. Which is a good
reason to have maintainers who are, instead of me.

Saying that this means I lack responsibility and am only interested in
taking the easy way out is, again, insulting. 

-- 
see shy jo


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Gabor Gombas
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 02:26:51PM +0100, Maximilian Attems wrote:

> the -rc kernels are build in experimental, staging area for unstable
> and without any potential d-i breakage.

Ah, nice, I did not notice it. Perhaps it should get some more publicity
to attract more testers :-)

Gabor

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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Norbert Tretkowski
* Gabor Gombas wrote:
> Packaging at least -rc kernels for unstable might be a good idea for
> Debian too. That would provide more testing coverage for -rc releases,
> and this is what upstream needs the most.

We already had some -rc releases in experimental for 2.6.14 and
2.6.15.

Norbert


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Maximilian Attems
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 01:51:17PM +0100, Gabor Gombas wrote:

> 
> Packaging at least -rc kernels for unstable might be a good idea for
> Debian too. That would provide more testing coverage for -rc releases,
> and this is what upstream needs the most.

the -rc kernels are build in experimental, staging area for unstable
and without any potential d-i breakage.

-- 
maks


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Gabor Gombas
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 12:23:31AM -0200, Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw) 
wrote:

>   Perhaps the idea of maintain a kernel with other distros is not bad,
> if Ubuntu shows up as a candidate, I would like to add Progeny, Linspire,
> Xandros, "DCC Alliance Fan Club" and also other Debian Derivatives. I really
> don't know if it is possible to mix RH, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and
> other distros to maintain the same kernel, but certainly should be possible
> to get all Debian (and Debian based/derivative) playing together. :-)

Different distros have different target audiences so this may not be
easy. Often fixing a driver bug for one class of users breaks it for an
other class of users so it is quite possible that different distros want
different bugs to be fixed/left alone.

Also, other distros (e.g. RedHat) already found out the hard way that
diverging too much from upstream costs a lot. So unless you find someone
to pay the maintainers of such a forked kernel, it will not work out in
the long term.

>   If you give it a quick look (and a quick try), we will have more
> users testing the same kernel, which means more feedback, we will have
> more developers working to get it stable and working to get it secure.
> Probably even upstream get benefits from this model and sounds like a very
> good way to work together, even to try to integrate outside patches and
> backporting things. =)

Dave Jones (Fedora) and Greg KH (Gentoo) already posted a much better idea
on l-k: make packages from daily -git snapshots available for distro
testers, so bugs like the past udev breakages are found _before_ the
next official kernel version is released.

Packaging at least -rc kernels for unstable might be a good idea for
Debian too. That would provide more testing coverage for -rc releases,
and this is what upstream needs the most.

Gabor

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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread martin f krafft
also sprach Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006.01.04.0043 +0100]:
> Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
> stable kernel tree, or something?

I doubt RH has the same concept of stability as we do, and I surely
don't want a plethora of potentially untested or buggy hardware
support patches in my productive kernels.

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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Sven Luther
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 12:39:09PM +0100, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> * Sven Luther 
> 
> | I believe it has also an influence on the place where the source package is
> | ohold (alioth svn repo over whatever strange stuff ubuntu uses), and they 
> said
> | we should use their system. 
> 
> yeah, git, really strange stuff in the world of Linux kernel

Ah, could, it used to be bazar thingy, or arch previously, which is one of the
most non-friendly tools out there.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Tollef Fog Heen
* Sven Luther 

| I believe it has also an influence on the place where the source package is
| ohold (alioth svn repo over whatever strange stuff ubuntu uses), and they said
| we should use their system. 

yeah, git, really strange stuff in the world of Linux kernel
development.  Available from
rsync://rsync.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bcollins/ubuntu-2.6.git
(or http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bcollins/ubuntu-2.6.git/)

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are  : :' :
  `. `' 
`-  


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Sven Luther
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 08:58:09AM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> well, the kernel is definitly about the same level as the toolchain and
> standard/base - changes can have very easily impact on the installer,
> and it is not an option to remove the package if it is broken.

Nope, still it is more in the cqtegory of general base than essential
toolchain, but as you said, it is only a week.

> > > > > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > > > > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > > > > freeze, d-i RC]
> > > > > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> > > > 
> > > > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time 
> > > > with
> > > > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 
> > > > month.
> > > 
> > > Well, if we want to release with a newer kernel, we need to make sure
> > > d-i doesn't stumble over it. Experience tells us that there are enough
> > 
> > What experience ?
> 
> I was speaking about the installer. And usually there are lots of
> last-minute changes that need to go in - not only new languages, but
> lots of other small minor, but still important bug fixes.

Indeed. I claim that the installer experience gained during the last steps of
the sarge release is worthless for the current situation, as the kernel
situation is lightyears from what it was back then. Failing on your part to
aknowledge this would be a negation or dismissal of the work done by the
kernel team during these past 6 month or so, and i would personally feel
offended, and i believe others will too, if you do this.

It is as if i was takign the boot-floppies experience to take conclusions on
the current installer.

> > > Also, the kernel will be outdated sooner or later anyways - so, if after
> > > one year the kernel is 12 or 14 months old is not too much a difference.
> > 
> > Hehe, me runs sid kernels installed almost as is on all my sarge systems
> > indeed, just with rebuild yaird and mininmally backported udev.
> 
> Well, but then an older kernel doesn't hurt you? :P

Imagine an installer with a known remote security exploit, which brings up the
network early in the install process. This is microsoftian kind of practice,
and i want nothing to do with it, nor my name associated with it, and i
believe the same for you. Still we did, if i remember well, such a kernel in
the sarge installer, solely because the infrastructure didn't allow us to fix
it in a timely fashion.

This is understandable mere month or weeks before the sarge release, but
inexcusable at this point of the release process.

> > Indeed, but you have only the sarge experience to go by, and taking the 
> > sarge
> > experience on this is hardly fair to the huge amount the kernel team has
> > devoted to streamline the process.
> 
> Of course, we have seen that the kernel build process is way more mature
> now. Nobody doubts that.

and that is an euphemism. Still there is doubt about the ability of the kernel
team to be able to think how this maturity can be extended beyond the kernel
team, and there where harsh words about our ability voiced also, which i think
are displaced. so, altough people can't honestly say they doubt it, some still
think they know better with regard to kernel matters, and don't hesitate to
patronize us on this.

> > Also, i don't really believe joeyh and fjp
> > are really the relevant maintainers with regard to the debian kernel and its
> > application, since they lack the vision of how things could go better, or 
> > more
> > thruthfully, probably lack the time and motivation to think really about the
> > issue, and why should they, it is the kernel team jobs :)
> 
> Well, they are definitly the relevant people for the installer. And,
> frankly speaking, at least I have good experience with both of them.

For the installer, sure, but the generation of the d-i kernel .udebs is only
marginally of their relevance, and furthermore they don't want the
responsability associated with it, and as proof i can show you that joeyh
upgraded kernel-wedge and the x86 d-i module udebs, but didn't touch all the
other architectures, defaulting it upto the porters, which are the exact same
guys doing the kernel packages. So joeyh and fjp can't have it both way.

And furthermore this is to make their live easier, so they have more time to
concentrate on more important and core d-i work.

> > d-i is only a part of the problem anyway, and i believe the less 
> > problematic.
> > out-of-tree modules and third-party patches are a worse mess.
> 
> Hm, which out-of-tree modules do you consider to be release critical,
> i.e. we cannot release without them?

Well, i guess once we kick the non-free firmware modules into the non-free
part of linux-2.6, you will reconsider that, or if there are out-of-tree
network or disk drivers. I would say that most of the wlan out-of-tree drivers
already qualify.

Frien

Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-04 Thread Sven Luther
Sorry for the long mail, but i believe there is something important all the
way done, so if you cannot be bothered to read it all; please go down to the
point marked *IMPORTANT*.

On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:05:04PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> You have been harranguing the ftp team to approve new upstream kernels

Wrong, i have asked Gannef to do it quicker NEW handling, and i told him about
this as soon as i found out about the 2.6.15 kernel release, since i believe
infomring folk early is good courtesy if you want them to do stuff for you, as
they can then more easily fit it in their schedule.

Notice that NEW handling is also important in this case, since the
autobuilders will build out of incoming, but not out of NEW, and since kernels
are rather long in building, this is an additional delay.

I may have been more insistent, and thus more dissapointed when it failed to
happen the same day, for the 2.6.14 release, since this one culminated an
intense work session of the whole debian-kernel team to make the
2.6.12->2.6.14 transition with initrd-tools going away and co happen. We are
speaking of 2 to 3 weeks of intense work on the -rc serie, which culminated
in the release, with the claimed aim to do 0-day uploads which many many
believed was not possible, and it didn't happen not for technical reasons, but
for bureaucratic details. You would feal the same, but on a larger scale when
you where about to announce the release, and you couldn't for some stupid
reason fully not under your control and you believe it is an unnecessary
issue. Can you honestly say we wouldn't hear you rant about it afterward ?

But again, this is the second time this happens, so as soon as i knew, i
informed Ganneff, and didn't harrangue or demand or whatever, just informed.
I _did_ rant about the not-really-need for NEW in these cases, but that is
unrelated.

> through the NEW queue before they've even been uploaded -- for an amazing
> false optimization that burns good will with your fellow developers.  Even

Yes, and we are all volunteers, the preparation of a release like the 2.6.14
one had demanded effort and sacrifice from about a dozen persons, do you not
think it burns good will to work on this if you fail to achieve your stated
goal for bureaucratic details, i know my motivation fell a bit when we did
indeed miss dinstall.

> if udebs *were* being built from the same linux-2.6 source package, this
> doesn't address the real reason why it's important to freeze the kernel
> early:  *the kernel is a core component of everyone's system and detecting
> regressions takes a long time*.  Anything that requires a reboot cycle or an

How long a time ? A month, two month, four month ? And what is the cost
balance between backporting all those fixes from the new version, and simply
using the new version.

Also, with the new approach of building -rc releases in experimental, we have
easily another month or so of time to test the kernels, and the possibility to
correct at least part of the issues in upstream before even the release.

But sure, there are issues, but i don't believe they are as time consuming as
you make them.

> installation test in order for users to detect bugs is going to need a
> longer testing period than other packages; the only way to ensure this
> happens is by freezing it early, i.e., around the same time as the toolchain
> packages for which we have the same problem of figuring out whether a new
> version is better or worse.

Bah, ... I can guarantee you users are quick in testing new kernels, part of
them are, and we test them ourself also and run them, so major issues are
found early. we knew about the powerpc debconf/postinst script fuckage before
he package left incoming, altough there was no way to stop it from entering
the archive, and the bug reports came in very very shortly after dinstall.

> The underlying assumption in your plea for a shorter kernel freeze is "newer
> is better".  But people who accept this assumption unconditionally don't
> *run* Debian stable; so neither should we base our freeze timeline on an

Bah, they run stable with sid/experimental or self built kernels, which is the
sanest thing to do, especially given the messy kernel stable security
situation, which i warned you about in april.

> unconditional acceptance of it.  Newer isn't necessarily better, but it is
> necessarily *different*, which is the enemy of stability.

No. the kernel evolves, but more importantly issues get fixed. There are some
newer breakage that may slip in, but all in all the fixing amount overweights
the breakage introduced, and this breakage can be fixed, so i will have to
disagree with this.

But i believe the point is elsewhere, with our current plan, we will always
have two release candidates in the archive, or a single good quality release
candidate. All i ask, and i believe all agree on that, is that the freeze date
and the choice of kernel is done solely on the quality and testing of the
kernel, 

Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Andreas Barth
* Sven Luther ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [060103 23:02]:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:31:38PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > the other hand side, the difference is only one week - and if nothing is
> > broken by that, we can freeze the kernel at N-110 also.
 
> i think comparing the kernel with the toolchain is overkill, if nothing else a
> last minute change in the toolchain will need a kernel recompile anyway maybe.
> I do confess that i read June 30 at first, and this seemed much less
> acceptable to me.

well, the kernel is definitly about the same level as the toolchain and
standard/base - changes can have very easily impact on the installer,
and it is not an option to remove the package if it is broken.


> > > > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > > > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > > > freeze, d-i RC]
> > > > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> > > 
> > > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time 
> > > with
> > > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
> > 
> > Well, if we want to release with a newer kernel, we need to make sure
> > d-i doesn't stumble over it. Experience tells us that there are enough
> 
> What experience ?

I was speaking about the installer. And usually there are lots of
last-minute changes that need to go in - not only new languages, but
lots of other small minor, but still important bug fixes.


> > Also, the kernel will be outdated sooner or later anyways - so, if after
> > one year the kernel is 12 or 14 months old is not too much a difference.
> 
> Hehe, me runs sid kernels installed almost as is on all my sarge systems
> indeed, just with rebuild yaird and mininmally backported udev.

Well, but then an older kernel doesn't hurt you? :P


> Indeed, but you have only the sarge experience to go by, and taking the sarge
> experience on this is hardly fair to the huge amount the kernel team has
> devoted to streamline the process.

Of course, we have seen that the kernel build process is way more mature
now. Nobody doubts that.


> Also, i don't really believe joeyh and fjp
> are really the relevant maintainers with regard to the debian kernel and its
> application, since they lack the vision of how things could go better, or more
> thruthfully, probably lack the time and motivation to think really about the
> issue, and why should they, it is the kernel team jobs :)

Well, they are definitly the relevant people for the installer. And,
frankly speaking, at least I have good experience with both of them.


> d-i is only a part of the problem anyway, and i believe the less problematic.
> out-of-tree modules and third-party patches are a worse mess.

Hm, which out-of-tree modules do you consider to be release critical,
i.e. we cannot release without them?


Cheers,
Andi
-- 
  http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:34:43PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 12:23:31AM -0200, Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw) 
> wrote:
> > 1. http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/3/55
> 
> > Perhaps the idea of maintain a kernel with other distros is not bad,
> > if Ubuntu shows up as a candidate, I would like to add Progeny, Linspire,
> > Xandros, "DCC Alliance Fan Club" and also other Debian Derivatives. I really
> > don't know if it is possible to mix RH, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and
> > other distros to maintain the same kernel, but certainly should be possible
> > to get all Debian (and Debian based/derivative) playing together. :-)
> 
> The biggest obstacle to this is that different distributions have different
> and contradictory requirements for what ships in the kernel.  For Debian,
> the obvious requirement is that everything we ship in main meets the DFSG;
> this is a requirement that is not shared by Ubuntu, for instance, which
> means any collaboration on kernels between those two distros has to allow
> for different bits being stripped out at the time of source package
> generation.
> 
> It would certainly be nice to see improvements in kernel collaboration, and
> I believe it is possible, we just have to be honest with ourselves about the
> difficulties involved.

Also, notice that cooperation with the ubuntu kernels was more marked when
Fabionne was the ubuntu kernel maintainer, but now that he has passed the
relay, i feel that it is less. We have proposed to them to use a common
infrastrcuture with enabled/disabled patches for both, but the reply was
mostly of the kind, yeah we would like to cooperate, and no actions followed.
I believe it has also an influence on the place where the source package is
ohold (alioth svn repo over whatever strange stuff ubuntu uses), and they said
we should use their system. 

So, altough patches can occasionally be exchanged, i doubt that cooperation
will go further for control-and-politics reason, and i believe it is maybe
best so for both involved. There can be cooperation without sharing all the
infrastructure and packaging. Other less high-profile daughter-distros are
probably simply reusing the debian kernel, and this is probably the best way
of doing this.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Steve Langasek
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 12:23:31AM -0200, Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw) 
wrote:
> 1. http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/3/55

>   Perhaps the idea of maintain a kernel with other distros is not bad,
> if Ubuntu shows up as a candidate, I would like to add Progeny, Linspire,
> Xandros, "DCC Alliance Fan Club" and also other Debian Derivatives. I really
> don't know if it is possible to mix RH, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and
> other distros to maintain the same kernel, but certainly should be possible
> to get all Debian (and Debian based/derivative) playing together. :-)

The biggest obstacle to this is that different distributions have different
and contradictory requirements for what ships in the kernel.  For Debian,
the obvious requirement is that everything we ship in main meets the DFSG;
this is a requirement that is not shared by Ubuntu, for instance, which
means any collaboration on kernels between those two distros has to allow
for different bits being stripped out at the time of source package
generation.

It would certainly be nice to see improvements in kernel collaboration, and
I believe it is possible, we just have to be honest with ourselves about the
difficulties involved.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Steve Langasek
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 11:27:25PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 11:01:03PM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> > (forgot to CC d-kernel on this)

> > On Tuesday 03 January 2006 22:02, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time
> > > with this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2
> > > month.

> > 2.6.8 is not an optimal kernel, but largely due to timing (i.e. SATA just 
> > starting to get implemented).

> > I remember we did consider using 2.6.10 instead of 2.6.8 and decided not 
> > to mainly because it was not really that much better than 2.6.8.
> > As I remember it, this was a joint decision by the kernel team, release 
> > managers and the d-i developers. Not something that the kernel team were 
> > really pushing and was blocked by some assholes from the d-i team who did 
> > not want to cooperate.

> Well, i remember joeyh vetoing it because it would take at least a month to
> get the change done, and i believe we didn't really push for it because the
> infrastructure was a mess back then. This has changed.

> The one point that put me up, is that we should have gotten that security
> update in, but this was also vetoed for the same month-long delay in the
> kernel/d-i upgrade process. The kernel team has reduced that delay to less
> than 24hours now for the release arches,

You have been harranguing the ftp team to approve new upstream kernels
through the NEW queue before they've even been uploaded -- for an amazing
false optimization that burns good will with your fellow developers.  Even
if udebs *were* being built from the same linux-2.6 source package, this
doesn't address the real reason why it's important to freeze the kernel
early:  *the kernel is a core component of everyone's system and detecting
regressions takes a long time*.  Anything that requires a reboot cycle or an
installation test in order for users to detect bugs is going to need a
longer testing period than other packages; the only way to ensure this
happens is by freezing it early, i.e., around the same time as the toolchain
packages for which we have the same problem of figuring out whether a new
version is better or worse.

The underlying assumption in your plea for a shorter kernel freeze is "newer
is better".  But people who accept this assumption unconditionally don't
*run* Debian stable; so neither should we base our freeze timeline on an
unconditional acceptance of it.  Newer isn't necessarily better, but it is
necessarily *different*, which is the enemy of stability.

There is still room for targetted fixes to the kernel after the freeze date;
backports of new drivers, or backports of specific bugfixes, are certainly
fair game.  Taking a new version of whatever upstream happens to have
released would not be.

> My believe is that this kind of thing should be as much automated as possible,
> to let the few ressource we have be used where best it should, a little work
> at the start which will pay off forever after, this is what computers and
> programming is for, to make the task of the users and programmers easier, i
> think we all agree with that, or we would still be using boot-floppies :)

I'm all in favor of streamlining the integration of new kernel versions into
the installer, but I don't believe that the majority of the work involved
falls into the "automatable" category.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 01/03/2006 10:13 PM, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:43:28PM -0500, Brian Nelson wrote:
> 
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes:
>>
>>>On Jan 04, Adam Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other 
newer
things newer kernels might require.
>>>
>>>OTOH, old kernel are buggy and out of date wrt modern hardware, and we
>>>lack the manpower to backport for years fixes and new features RHEL-style.
>>>Do you have a better solution?
>>
>>Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
>>stable kernel tree, or something?
> 
> Why doesn't debian really collaborate with ubuntu on the kernels, which would
> be more natural. Debian use mostly the mainline upstream kernels, which is
> where everything goes back in anyway, so ...

Just my two cents... :)


Sometime ago, Adrian Bunk [1]raise the question about a kernel stable
tree in LKML, after a lot of discussion (and AFAIK no good resolution), a lot
of ideas travel on the list (also in the midle of flamewar), ideas like "try
to not break the entire userland" and "let the distro take care of having a
stable kernel".

1. http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/3/55


Perhaps the idea of maintain a kernel with other distros is not bad,
if Ubuntu shows up as a candidate, I would like to add Progeny, Linspire,
Xandros, "DCC Alliance Fan Club" and also other Debian Derivatives. I really
don't know if it is possible to mix RH, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and
other distros to maintain the same kernel, but certainly should be possible
to get all Debian (and Debian based/derivative) playing together. :-)

If you give it a quick look (and a quick try), we will have more
users testing the same kernel, which means more feedback, we will have
more developers working to get it stable and working to get it secure.
Probably even upstream get benefits from this model and sounds like a very
good way to work together, even to try to integrate outside patches and
backporting things. =)

Kind regards,

- --
Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw)
"Debian. Freedom to code. Code to freedom!"
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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Gabor Gombas
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 01:10:49AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:

> But yes, udev is the problematic case, altough i run 2.6.14 with sarge udev
> and it works.

AFAIK it should work with the default ruleset. It breaks only with
certain custom rules due to a bug in the libsysfs version used by udev.

So, if you did not create any udev rules yourself you should be fine.
With old udev and new kernel my rules that map my USB disks to persistent
names under /dev were definitely broken.

Gabor

-- 
 -
 MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
 -


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:43:28PM -0500, Brian Nelson wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes:
> 
> > On Jan 04, Adam Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other 
> >> newer
> >> things newer kernels might require.
> > OTOH, old kernel are buggy and out of date wrt modern hardware, and we
> > lack the manpower to backport for years fixes and new features RHEL-style.
> > Do you have a better solution?
> 
> Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
> stable kernel tree, or something?

Why doesn't debian really collaborate with ubuntu on the kernels, which would
be more natural. Debian use mostly the mainline upstream kernels, which is
where everything goes back in anyway, so ...

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 05:28:15PM -0600, Adam Heath wrote:
> Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other newer
> things newer kernels might require.

Notice that Linus recently expressed on LKML that udev and other userland
breakage on kernel upgrade is not to acceptable, so this would be a bug to be
fixed.

But yes, udev is the problematic case, altough i run 2.6.14 with sarge udev
and it works.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Brian Nelson
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes:

> On Jan 04, Adam Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other newer
>> things newer kernels might require.
> OTOH, old kernel are buggy and out of date wrt modern hardware, and we
> lack the manpower to backport for years fixes and new features RHEL-style.
> Do you have a better solution?

Why don't we use RHEL's kernel, or collaborate with them to maintain a
stable kernel tree, or something?

-- 
Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat.


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Jonas Smedegaard
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On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 00:24:04 +0100
Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > (Without the "current method sucks" comments please; saying "I
> > think the current situation could be improved by..." is much more
> > likely to get positive reactions.)
> 
> This is not my past experience though, and the current method sucks,
> this is a fact, i as powerpc porter of d-i have to live with, so why
> should i not be allowed to express my opinion about this ? 

Because your ignorance of being rude will hurt the conversation - even
if your arguments are sane.


Go ahead and claim that I have no right to say so due to my having a
record of being rude myself. Such reaction would only prove my point
here.


 - Jonas

P.S.

Please do *not* cc me as I am subscribed to d-kernel!

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Adam Heath
On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, Margarita Manterola wrote:

> On 1/3/06, Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> > should be together with the rest of base, i believe.
> > [...]
> > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
> >
> > So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel 
> > later
> > during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
> > should be ignored. Already you are considering upgrading the sarge kernel
> > which has some trouble booting on a rather non-negligible quantity of
> > hardware, so having a two version outdated kernel at release time is not 
> > nice.
>
> I really don't think that having a four months out-dated kernel is
> that bad.  What is really important is to have stable kernels.  Past
> experience with the modified 2.6 release policy has shown that some
> 2.6 kernels are pretty stable and some others are quite crappy.

Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other newer
things newer kernels might require.


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Marco d'Itri
On Jan 04, Adam Heath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Not to mention that 2.6.15 requires a newer udev.  Who knows what other newer
> things newer kernels might require.
OTOH, old kernel are buggy and out of date wrt modern hardware, and we
lack the manpower to backport for years fixes and new features RHEL-style.
Do you have a better solution?
(Other than telling people "just use Ubuntu", which is what I do.)

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Marco


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:04:39PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > Indeed. The d-i team usually says "no" outright to any kind of proposal of
> > this kind, so it is up to the kernel team to come up with an implementation
> > which convinces them :) The release team deserves to be informed about the
> > possibility though.
> 
> Cite message-ids or irc logs please.

Such hiding in the sand, ...  well i don't keep irc logs, and you can go
searching for those past email posts as well as i can.
> 
> > Indeed, but you have only the sarge experience to go by, and taking the 
> > sarge
> > experience on this is hardly fair to the huge amount the kernel team has
> > devoted to streamline the process. Also, i don't really believe joeyh and 
> > fjp
> > are really the relevant maintainers with regard to the debian kernel and its
> > application, since they lack the vision of how things could go better, or 
> > more
> > thruthfully, probably lack the time and motivation to think really about the
> > issue, and why should they, it is the kernel team jobs :)
> 
> Understanding how the above paragraph could be perceived as insulting is
> left as an exersise for the reader.

Yeah, and i have mails from you which where degrees of magnitude more
insulting than those, and i have still not forgiven you about the way you
hurt me in april. So tone done your arrogance a bit, please.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 12:13:37AM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Tuesday 03 January 2006 23:52, Sven Luther wrote:
> > The current proposal is about simply using the same .udeb organisation
> > and move it inside the linux-2.6 common package, which is something
> > that works out just fine for ubuntu even, but which the current
> > linux-2.6 common package infrastructure could also handle.
> 
> So, when can we expect a coherent, full proposal (with overview of 
> benefits, possible pitfalls, things that need to be worked out further, 
> and so on) on this in a dedicated mail on a new thread to the relevant 
> mailing lists, so we can actually comment on it instead of only seeing a 
> rough outline mentioned every so often as part of a flame?

The linux-2.6 package will propose a solution which will produce the *EXACT
SAME* set of .udebs as with the current kernel-wedge solution, and will be
more easy to maintain in a more automated way, and integrated with the rest of
the linux-2.6 kernel, so porters only need to do the work once in a single
integrated way.

> (Without the "current method sucks" comments please; saying "I think the 
> current situation could be improved by..." is much more likely to get 
> positive reactions.)

This is not my past experience though, and the current method sucks, this is a
fact, i as powerpc porter of d-i have to live with, so why should i not be
allowed to express my opinion about this ? 

> > The only 
> > reason i saw against this was a mail from joeyh mentioning ease of
> > moving modules around inside .udebs, and that this would be easier
> > under the d-i umbrella than if it is inside the kernel, and naturally
> > the old sarge-time brokeness in the archive infrastructure, which is
> > presumably fixed by now, or should be fixed for etch.
> 
> You forget the argument that when kernel udebs are maintained within d-i, 
> we will be much more likely to spot changes in them as a possible cause 
> of breakage when installation-reports come in.

well, if the only thing you are afraid about is documentation, we shall
provide you with this information in a way most suitable. All this can and and
will be easily automated and presented upon you on a platter, which is not the
case with the current kernel-wedge situation, where the i386 .udebs and
kernel-wedge are updated and the rest of the ports left out in the cold
without any kind of info about possible breakage already fixed on i386, thanks
you very much, so two weights two measures, right ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:09:18PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > And have you added stable-security into the equation ? Your choices of back 
> > in
> > april are in part responsible for the abysmal situation in stable-security
> > with regard to kernels during these past months.
> 
> Pedantically speaking, fjp made no d-i release decisions last April.

Nope, you did, and the "Your" above was meant to be the d-i team.

I also remember you accusing of single-handledly delaying the sarge release by
a week, which was not welcome after i invested almost a week fighthing with
k-p to get the 2.4 ppc kernels in a decent shape for sarge, especially as i
didn't really believe into 2.4 powerpc kernels at that time. Would i have told
you at the start of that week what i would have tried to do, can you honestly
you would have let me do it ? 

But anyway, let's agree to disagree or whatever, and stop hurting each other,
there will be a proposal made in the 2.6.16 timeframe, and we can then speak
again about this.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Frans Pop
On Tuesday 03 January 2006 23:52, Sven Luther wrote:
> The current proposal is about simply using the same .udeb organisation
> and move it inside the linux-2.6 common package, which is something
> that works out just fine for ubuntu even, but which the current
> linux-2.6 common package infrastructure could also handle.

So, when can we expect a coherent, full proposal (with overview of 
benefits, possible pitfalls, things that need to be worked out further, 
and so on) on this in a dedicated mail on a new thread to the relevant 
mailing lists, so we can actually comment on it instead of only seeing a 
rough outline mentioned every so often as part of a flame?

(Without the "current method sucks" comments please; saying "I think the 
current situation could be improved by..." is much more likely to get 
positive reactions.)

> The only 
> reason i saw against this was a mail from joeyh mentioning ease of
> moving modules around inside .udebs, and that this would be easier
> under the d-i umbrella than if it is inside the kernel, and naturally
> the old sarge-time brokeness in the archive infrastructure, which is
> presumably fixed by now, or should be fixed for etch.

You forget the argument that when kernel udebs are maintained within d-i, 
we will be much more likely to spot changes in them as a possible cause 
of breakage when installation-reports come in.


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Joey Hess
Sven Luther wrote:
> And have you added stable-security into the equation ? Your choices of back in
> april are in part responsible for the abysmal situation in stable-security
> with regard to kernels during these past months.

Pedantically speaking, fjp made no d-i release decisions last April.

If you would like to blame this pendant, you'll need to be a bit more
specific.

-- 
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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Joey Hess
Sven Luther wrote:
> Indeed. The d-i team usually says "no" outright to any kind of proposal of
> this kind, so it is up to the kernel team to come up with an implementation
> which convinces them :) The release team deserves to be informed about the
> possibility though.

Cite message-ids or irc logs please.

> Indeed, but you have only the sarge experience to go by, and taking the sarge
> experience on this is hardly fair to the huge amount the kernel team has
> devoted to streamline the process. Also, i don't really believe joeyh and fjp
> are really the relevant maintainers with regard to the debian kernel and its
> application, since they lack the vision of how things could go better, or more
> thruthfully, probably lack the time and motivation to think really about the
> issue, and why should they, it is the kernel team jobs :)

Understanding how the above paragraph could be perceived as insulting is
left as an exersise for the reader.

-- 
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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 11:33:44PM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Tuesday 03 January 2006 23:01, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Indeed. The d-i team usually says "no" outright to any kind of proposal
> > of this kind, so it is up to the kernel team to come up with an
> > implementation which convinces them :)
> 
> Bullshit.
> We (d-i team, mainly Joey) gave very good reasons why we thought the 
> proposal was not good and would result in more problems than it solved.

You did indeed give good reasons why having the one .udeb per module plan i
follhardly proposed would not work.

The current proposal is about simply using the same .udeb organisation and
move it inside the linux-2.6 common package, which is something that works out
just fine for ubuntu even, but which the current linux-2.6 common package
infrastructure could also handle. The only reason i saw against this was a
mail from joeyh mentioning ease of moving modules around inside .udebs, and
that this would be easier under the d-i umbrella than if it is inside the
kernel, and naturally the old sarge-time brokeness in the archive
infrastructure, which is presumably fixed by now, or should be fixed for etch.

I believe that this is indeed an argument, but which is outweighted by the
benefit especially on the port situation, i believe, and the reason i come
back with this times after time :)

> That you choose to structurally ignore the opinions, comments and 
> objections by others who are a lot more knowledgeable about the _other_ 
> area in Debian impacted by the proposal is typical.

Yeah, i am an idiot and you know best, especially when you fail to clearly
understand what i propose and chose to reject it on the basis of what you
think i propose, this is probably due in part to some lacking in my
communication skills, but i guess you also don't make things easy.

> Your half-baked proposals may look good from a kernel maintenance 
> viewpoint, but in our opinion they have a negative impact on the d-i side 
> of the equation.

And have you added stable-security into the equation ? Your choices of back in
april are in part responsible for the abysmal situation in stable-security
with regard to kernels during these past months. Don't look only to save a few
hours of work during the moment, in order to lose huge amounts of times (and
irremediable lose of face even) later on.

> Rejecting a badly thought out proposal is _not_ the same as saying no 
> outright.

Yeah, but you have kept saying to me : it is a stupid idea, don't even think
about it, and then you speak about badly thought out proposal ? 

> I'm not going to repeat the arguments here. They can be found in the 
> archives.

Indeed, apart from the fact that they are the arguments against the wrong
proposal :)

> Your attitude does nothing to motivate me to work on this.

Yep, but i don't ask you to work on this, while you ask me to not work on it
and keep the status quo, which is broken.

Friendly,

Sven Luther



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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Frans Pop
On Tuesday 03 January 2006 23:01, Sven Luther wrote:
> Indeed. The d-i team usually says "no" outright to any kind of proposal
> of this kind, so it is up to the kernel team to come up with an
> implementation which convinces them :)

Bullshit.
We (d-i team, mainly Joey) gave very good reasons why we thought the 
proposal was not good and would result in more problems than it solved.
That you choose to structurally ignore the opinions, comments and 
objections by others who are a lot more knowledgeable about the _other_ 
area in Debian impacted by the proposal is typical.
Your half-baked proposals may look good from a kernel maintenance 
viewpoint, but in our opinion they have a negative impact on the d-i side 
of the equation.

Rejecting a badly thought out proposal is _not_ the same as saying no 
outright.

I'm not going to repeat the arguments here. They can be found in the 
archives.

Your attitude does nothing to motivate me to work on this.


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:26:02PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> On 1/3/06, Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> > should be together with the rest of base, i believe.
> > [...]
> > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
> >
> > So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel 
> > later
> > during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
> > should be ignored. Already you are considering upgrading the sarge kernel
> > which has some trouble booting on a rather non-negligible quantity of
> > hardware, so having a two version outdated kernel at release time is not 
> > nice.
> 
> I really don't think that having a four months out-dated kernel is
> that bad.  What is really important is to have stable kernels.  Past
> experience with the modified 2.6 release policy has shown that some
> 2.6 kernels are pretty stable and some others are quite crappy.

Indeed, but that would be something the kernel team is best placed to decide,
and if a given unstable kernel is crappy, we won't allow it in testing, its
that simple.

> So, I'd say it's better to give some time to be sure that the kernel
> that is shipping with Debian's stable distribution is really a stable
> kernel, and not a crappy one.  I don't think you can tell the
> difference before this version of the kernel reaches a big number of
> people, and therefore, it does need time (frozen, in testing).

Indeed, unstable is such a place, but is 4 month too much of a time to find
out, and would a month or two be enough, i do believe this.

> However, if while preparing the release, the frozen kernel would show
> up as being a crappy one, the release managers might allow for a new
> kernel to enter testing.  But this is only a hypothetical case, and I
> expect it would be carefully evaluated before it actually happened.

The crappy kernel would never enter testing in the first place, as testing has
always been done on unstable. See 2.6.14 is out for over 2 month now, and it
didn't reach testing, and never will now that 2.6.15 is out, because the
devfs/initrd-tool situation, and this was the right thing to do.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 11:01:03PM +0100, Frans Pop wrote:
> (forgot to CC d-kernel on this)
> 
> On Tuesday 03 January 2006 22:02, Sven Luther wrote:
> > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time
> > with this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2
> > month.
> 
> 2.6.8 is not an optimal kernel, but largely due to timing (i.e. SATA just 
> starting to get implemented).
> 
> I remember we did consider using 2.6.10 instead of 2.6.8 and decided not 
> to mainly because it was not really that much better than 2.6.8.
> As I remember it, this was a joint decision by the kernel team, release 
> managers and the d-i developers. Not something that the kernel team were 
> really pushing and was blocked by some assholes from the d-i team who did 
> not want to cooperate.

Well, i remember joeyh vetoing it because it would take at least a month to
get the change done, and i believe we didn't really push for it because the
infrastructure was a mess back then. This has changed.

The one point that put me up, is that we should have gotten that security
update in, but this was also vetoed for the same month-long delay in the
kernel/d-i upgrade process. The kernel team has reduced that delay to less
than 24hours now for the release arches, but there is still work to be done on
the d-i side of it, and more specifically with the module .udebs, which could
be uploaded quickly, but rely on the porters doing very unfriendly drudge
work.

My believe is that this kind of thing should be as much automated as possible,
to let the few ressource we have be used where best it should, a little work
at the start which will pay off forever after, this is what computers and
programming is for, to make the task of the users and programmers easier, i
think we all agree with that, or we would still be using boot-floppies :)

> The first kernel after 2.6.8 that was a real improvement was 2.6.12 and 
> that was released definitely too late for Sarge.

Agreed, the issue is the common infrastrucure, and the cost the previous
situation has, and the repercusion of this cost on stable-security.

> > Already it should be possible, provided the d-i guys get their act
> > together, to have a new d-i .udeb sets within 48 hours or less of a new
> > upstream kernel release, altough the image build may take longer, and
> > we hope to get the external modules and patches streamlined by then.
> 
> This is an extremely bad way to get friendly cooperation and discussion 
> about changing anything.

:) Well, we could have released 2.6.15 with .udeb modules included, which
would have been less friendly even.

> Producing new udebs for all architectures for d-i can be done quite fast, 

It could, joeyh even told me it could be easily automated, and Kamion
mentioned me he is already doing part of what is needed for that automation
(namely building module .udebs without installing the kernel images), but upto
now it is still a pain, and takes over a week or two to get done, this was the
case for both 2.6.12, and 2.6.14, and why is that ? Because the porters are
slackers is not really the right reply to this.

> as evidenced by the recent uploads for 2.6.14, provided the porters 
> taking care of the udebs for their architecture . I expect little 
> problems or delay for 2.6.15.

Indeed, and this is the crux of the problem, you put all the responsability on
the porters, while there is really no porter work needed at all. it is only
the nature of the non-unified package that the mainstream arch gets build
quickly, and the non-mainstream arches get bit-rotten until there is an
urgency and the porters get kicked. This is the process problem we are facing,
and i think we can solve in a way satisfactory to the d-i team.

My plan is to come up with something for the 2.6.16 timeframe, which you can
then review, and if it works out well, be used shortly afterward. Etch should
release with 2.6.18 i believe, with the current timeframe, so we have two
versions afterward to sort things out.

> As I remember it, the update from 2.6.8 to 2.6.12 was done quite fast for 
> i386.

And exactly this is the bug, and not the feature, it did happen quite fast for
i386, but nobody cared about the other arches, like before the i386 kernel
came out quite fast, but other arches came out with a more or less longer
delay. Compare with same day upload on 9 of the 12 main debian arches ? 

> Yes, we did wait a while before updating to 2.6.14, but that was 
> mainly because d-i itself first had to prepare its userland for the 
> removal of devfs.

The 2.6.12 to 2.6.14 upgrade was indeed very very painful because of the devfs
removal and thus initrd-tools replacement, i am well placed to know about
that.

> So please, get off your hobbyhorse and stop pissing people off with 
> unfounded statements.

He, so, there is no problem, and the situation is perfect, and you prefer to
hide and shoot the messenger :)

Friendly,

Sven Luther



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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:32:12PM +0100, Maximilian Attems wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:02:05PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > > N-117  = Mon 30 Jul 06: freeze essential toolchain, kernels
> > 
> > Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> > should be together with the rest of base, i believe.
> 
> the kernel is an essential piece of our release,
> makes sense to have it in tune with everchanging userspace interfaces
> (alsa, udev to name a few).

Indeed, that is why it is part of base, but putting it in comparison with the
toolchain (glibc, gcc, etc) is overkill. 

> > > N-110  = Mon  7 Aug 06: freeze base, non-essential toolchain (including
> > > e.g. cdbs)
> > > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > > freeze, d-i RC]
> > > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> > 
> > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
> 
> we had the chance for sarge, but we weren't ready.

Due in big part to the messed up kernel situation we inherited from in sarge,
remember i proposed delaying sarge to get the unified kernel infrastructure :)

> for etch we will work for our best to be ready.

indeed.

> please don't rush out such mails without consensual position.

like bow and smile and wait forever ? This is not i believe the debian way of
handling things, and i am certainly not the only one taking this kind of
approach, and much more involved and whatever DDs than me have done it like
that, so ...

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Frans Pop
(forgot to CC d-kernel on this)

On Tuesday 03 January 2006 22:02, Sven Luther wrote:
> We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time
> with this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2
> month.

2.6.8 is not an optimal kernel, but largely due to timing (i.e. SATA just 
starting to get implemented).

I remember we did consider using 2.6.10 instead of 2.6.8 and decided not 
to mainly because it was not really that much better than 2.6.8.
As I remember it, this was a joint decision by the kernel team, release 
managers and the d-i developers. Not something that the kernel team were 
really pushing and was blocked by some assholes from the d-i team who did 
not want to cooperate.

The first kernel after 2.6.8 that was a real improvement was 2.6.12 and 
that was released definitely too late for Sarge.

> Already it should be possible, provided the d-i guys get their act
> together, to have a new d-i .udeb sets within 48 hours or less of a new
> upstream kernel release, altough the image build may take longer, and
> we hope to get the external modules and patches streamlined by then.

This is an extremely bad way to get friendly cooperation and discussion 
about changing anything.
Producing new udebs for all architectures for d-i can be done quite fast, 
as evidenced by the recent uploads for 2.6.14, provided the porters 
taking care of the udebs for their architecture . I expect little 
problems or delay for 2.6.15.

As I remember it, the update from 2.6.8 to 2.6.12 was done quite fast for 
i386. Yes, we did wait a while before updating to 2.6.14, but that was 
mainly because d-i itself first had to prepare its userland for the 
removal of devfs.

So please, get off your hobbyhorse and stop pissing people off with 
unfounded statements.


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:31:38PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> thanks for your mail. I just want to point out that we published the
> timeline already back in October, but of course, that shouldn't refrain
> us from changing it if this is necessary. :)

Yeah, i was already chidded (?) that my mail was too inflamatory, this was not
the intention, altough i wrote it such to get some reaction upto a point :)

> [re-arranged the quote]
> * Sven Luther ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [060103 22:03]:
> > On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > > N-117  = Mon 30 Jul 06: freeze essential toolchain, kernels
> > > N-110  = Mon  7 Aug 06: freeze base, non-essential toolchain (including
> > > e.g. cdbs)
> > 
> > Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> > should be together with the rest of base, i believe.
> 
> Hm, I'm quite sure we had some good reason for this; however, I cannot
> really remember why we put the kernel to the essential tool chain. On

:)

> the other hand side, the difference is only one week - and if nothing is
> broken by that, we can freeze the kernel at N-110 also.

i think comparing the kernel with the toolchain is overkill, if nothing else a
last minute change in the toolchain will need a kernel recompile anyway maybe.
I do confess that i read June 30 at first, and this seemed much less
acceptable to me.

> > > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > > freeze, d-i RC]
> > > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> > 
> > We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> > this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
> 
> Well, if we want to release with a newer kernel, we need to make sure
> d-i doesn't stumble over it. Experience tells us that there are enough

What experience ? There is no way of common measure between todays situation
and what happened in the pre-sarge timeframe, and we (i, but some of the
kernel team at least agreed with that) fully expect to get things working out
nicely well before the release date, so that there would be a much reduced
impact from the kernel upload on the d-i build schedule. Remember i proposed
the common infrastructure already in marsh/april last year, but was voted done
for the sarge release on it (with some no-kind words even).

The main issue will be one of testing the kernel and d-i built with it, but
there should be no technical hurdles which would cause month-long delays.

> last-minutes changes to the installer that we cannot avoid to better not
> change the kernel; if the installer team (i.e. Joey Hess or Frans Pop)
> tell us otherwise, we can of course adjust our plannings.  However,
> there will be a minimum periode where we just need to freeze everything
> to get enough testing to the proposed release.

Indeed. The d-i team usually says "no" outright to any kind of proposal of
this kind, so it is up to the kernel team to come up with an implementation
which convinces them :) The release team deserves to be informed about the
possibility though.

> Also, the kernel will be outdated sooner or later anyways - so, if after
> one year the kernel is 12 or 14 months old is not too much a difference.

Hehe, me runs sid kernels installed almost as is on all my sarge systems
indeed, just with rebuild yaird and mininmally backported udev. But still, it
is an image issue, and i believe the kernel team would be more happy if the
"obsolet the day it comes out" stigma debian has had in the past doesn't touch
us. Also, you will pay in maintenance cost for those few month difference
during all the etch livetime, guess who will be ending doing this work ? 

> > So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel 
> > later
> > during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
> > should be ignored.
> 
> Well, we as release team first believe what is told us by the relevant
> maintainers. Our current status is that kernel upgrades late in the
> release process (especially after the d-i RC) are rather painfull.

Indeed, but you have only the sarge experience to go by, and taking the sarge
experience on this is hardly fair to the huge amount the kernel team has
devoted to streamline the process. Also, i don't really believe joeyh and fjp
are really the relevant maintainers with regard to the debian kernel and its
application, since they lack the vision of how things could go better, or more
thruthfully, probably lack the time and motivation to think really about the
issue, and why should they, it is the kernel team jobs :)

d-i is only a part of the problem anyway, and i believe the less problematic.
out-of-tree modules and third-party patches are a worse mess.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Maximilian Attems
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:02:05PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > N-117  = Mon 30 Jul 06: freeze essential toolchain, kernels
> 
> Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> should be together with the rest of base, i believe.

the kernel is an essential piece of our release,
makes sense to have it in tune with everchanging userspace interfaces
(alsa, udev to name a few).
 
> > N-110  = Mon  7 Aug 06: freeze base, non-essential toolchain (including
> > e.g. cdbs)
> > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > freeze, d-i RC]
> > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> 
> We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.

we had the chance for sarge, but we weren't ready.
for etch we will work for our best to be ready.

please don't rush out such mails without consensual position.

-- 
maks


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Margarita Manterola
On 1/3/06, Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> should be together with the rest of base, i believe.
> [...]
> We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.
>
> So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel later
> during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
> should be ignored. Already you are considering upgrading the sarge kernel
> which has some trouble booting on a rather non-negligible quantity of
> hardware, so having a two version outdated kernel at release time is not nice.

I really don't think that having a four months out-dated kernel is
that bad.  What is really important is to have stable kernels.  Past
experience with the modified 2.6 release policy has shown that some
2.6 kernels are pretty stable and some others are quite crappy.

So, I'd say it's better to give some time to be sure that the kernel
that is shipping with Debian's stable distribution is really a stable
kernel, and not a crappy one.  I don't think you can tell the
difference before this version of the kernel reaches a big number of
people, and therefore, it does need time (frozen, in testing).

However, if while preparing the release, the frozen kernel would show
up as being a crappy one, the release managers might allow for a new
kernel to enter testing.  But this is only a hypothetical case, and I
expect it would be carefully evaluated before it actually happened.


--
Besos,
Marga



Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Andreas Barth
Hi,

thanks for your mail. I just want to point out that we published the
timeline already back in October, but of course, that shouldn't refrain
us from changing it if this is necessary. :)


[re-arranged the quote]
* Sven Luther ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [060103 22:03]:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > N-117  = Mon 30 Jul 06: freeze essential toolchain, kernels
> > N-110  = Mon  7 Aug 06: freeze base, non-essential toolchain (including
> > e.g. cdbs)
> 
> Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
> should be together with the rest of base, i believe.

Hm, I'm quite sure we had some good reason for this; however, I cannot
really remember why we put the kernel to the essential tool chain. On
the other hand side, the difference is only one week - and if nothing is
broken by that, we can freeze the kernel at N-110 also.


> > N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> > N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> > freeze, d-i RC]
> > N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]
> 
> We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
> this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.

Well, if we want to release with a newer kernel, we need to make sure
d-i doesn't stumble over it. Experience tells us that there are enough
last-minutes changes to the installer that we cannot avoid to better not
change the kernel; if the installer team (i.e. Joey Hess or Frans Pop)
tell us otherwise, we can of course adjust our plannings.  However,
there will be a minimum periode where we just need to freeze everything
to get enough testing to the proposed release.

Also, the kernel will be outdated sooner or later anyways - so, if after
one year the kernel is 12 or 14 months old is not too much a difference.


> So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel later
> during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
> should be ignored.

Well, we as release team first believe what is told us by the relevant
maintainers. Our current status is that kernel upgrades late in the
release process (especially after the d-i RC) are rather painfull.


Cheers,
Andi
-- 
  http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/


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Re: bits from the release team

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Luther
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> N-117  = Mon 30 Jul 06: freeze essential toolchain, kernels

Why do you put the kernel together with the essential toolchain freeze, it
should be together with the rest of base, i believe.

> N-110  = Mon  7 Aug 06: freeze base, non-essential toolchain (including
> e.g. cdbs)
> N-105  = Mon 14 Aug 06: d-i RC [directly after base freeze]
> N-45   = Wed 18 Oct 06: general freeze [about 2 months after base
> freeze, d-i RC]
> N  = Mon  4 Dec 06: release [1.5 months for the general freeze]

We will have a kernel which is outdated by two versions at release time with
this plan, since there are about 1 kernel upstream release every 2 month.

So, we will be asking the question about the upgradability of the kernel later
during this release process, and i believe that it is not something which
should be ignored. Already you are considering upgrading the sarge kernel
which has some trouble booting on a rather non-negligible quantity of
hardware, so having a two version outdated kernel at release time is not nice.

Already it should be possible, provided the d-i guys get their act together,
to have a new d-i .udeb sets within 48 hours or less of a new upstream kernel
release, altough the image build may take longer, and we hope to get the
external modules and patches streamlined by then.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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