Gentoo 1.4?

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

I think the only good thing that can come out of these discussions (though I contributed to it, I know) is if it gets more people involved in helping to develop Gentoo itself. I'd love to help out more myself, and I have some custom ebuilds, etc. I've neglected to contribute for criticism on Bugzilla because I know they're subpar and I haven't gotten around to learning enough to fix them up

Gentoo has one of the main important ingredients for a successful open source project, and that's a userbase that really cares about the project. It seems like a lot of people here really want to pitch in but don't really know where to start. If we can figure out how to better harness the enthusiasm that's all over the forums, I bet we could help get 1.4 out the door (yeah, I know it's largely due to GCC) and implement lots of cool new stuff to add in. A stronger connection between this community and the developer community could only benefit us all. And that goes both ways; it's not just something the developers need to do for you the user. We all should stop complaining and do something to help improve communications

barret · n00b Joined: 09 Oct 2002 Posts: 9

whoa, I haven't looked at this thread since I posted it, I didn't think it would get such a huge response. My only complaint is that no one has really answered my original question.

But I definitely have a better insight on how Gentoo is developing. I'm just guessing that no one is really sure when it's supposed to be released.

Zebulon · n00b Joined: 22 Sep 2002 Posts: 15

masseya · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 3:22 pm Post subject:

Zebulon-

Those quotes that you have are all really nice ideas, but they are not solutions. A solution would be like this

iplayfast · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 3:25 pm Post subject:

Chris Hickman · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:57 pm Post subject:

testing testing 123...I'm seeing that there are new posts in this thread but they are not appearing...tried it in 2 different browsers so it's not a weird cache issue or anything. sorry for the spam.

*now it shows up. have no idea why.

Chris Hickman · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 5:03 pm Post subject:

rac · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 7:35 pm Post subject:

I'm just in here responding to a couple of things that seem to me to be directed at stuff I said in the other thread.

Zebulon · n00b Joined: 22 Sep 2002 Posts: 15

mooman · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 11:13 pm Post subject:

Personally (and that's a heavy "IMHO" disclaimer), I think the developers need to take some responsiblity for communicating progress to their user base, rather than us pestering and interrupting them.

I mean, I'm a developer for a software company, and I have to provide weekly status reports to my boss that show my current projected milestones, accomplishments this past week, my plans for next week, and any issues/concerns that I have. Simple and sweet. Takes me 5 minutes

Isn't that what 'blogs and .plan files are usually for? Or posts to the announcements forum? We don't lack for mechanisms. We just need the developers to commit to taking a few mere minutes each week or so to keep us up to date.... Any way they choose to do it would probably placate the gathering mobs.

And if any of the impatient users complain that they aren't getting enough updates or detailed-enough reports, then a bunch of the old-timers on here can give them flak about how it used to be.. waiting for weeks without hearing anything.. in the snow.. uphill.. both ways...

Really, everything boils down to one of two methods:
1. The developers take the time to give us occasional updates
2. Someone occasionally asks/pesters the developers for updates and posts those.

I think option 1 is the nicer one, personally...
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rac · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 11:30 pm Post subject:

Will somebody please file a bug on bugzilla? I don't want to do it because I don't want to be involved in this. Has anybody noticed any developers posting in these threads? You are not reaching the people you need to reach. Nothing is going to change unless you file bugs.

When you want the attention of the moderators and forum users, post things in the forums. When you want the attention of the developers, file bugs.

You are taking out sign-language advertisements on the radio.
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For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder

mooman · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 11:39 pm Post subject:

rac, I'd agree with your sentiment if we were ready with a proposal for the developers, but I think at this point the users (myself included) are still just having a group huddle to figure out what we think would be the best approach. If we achieve anything even remotely resembling a consensus, then we can file that "bug" for the developers..

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Linux user off and on since circa 1995

Jyrinx · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 12:15 am Post subject:

Hey, I personally would say this thread is a success this time - not because everyone agrees, of course, but because things just seem more thorough and civil. (Seems paradoxical - it's a more productive discussion because we're arguing over more things :-)

)

Anyway, I dropped gentoo-dev a line about the thread (I was going to forward that parenthetical list of suggestions I posted, but by the time I got back to the computer, there were too many new and important things said to be done justice by my little tidbit); hopefully we can come up with something.

I think there's a fundamental dilemma here ... we want to come up with a way for the devs and users to communicate, but we're having trouble because we need to collaborate with the devs :-)

I think mooman's statement about responsibility represents a certain chicken-and-egg problem.

That said, hopefully the gentoo-dev post will get some devs' attention, and I'll go file a bug once I'm done with this. We may get somewhere yet

...

Jyrinx
jyrinx@mindspring.com

(A few loose ends:

seemant · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 1:47 am Post subject: A Note from a Gentoo Developer

Hi Everyone,

The concerns posted here are, in fact, valid. I would like to perhaps inform you of what has been going on behind the scenes for the last few months to address not only the problems and concerns behind a 1.4_final release, but also the concerns of user/developer interaction.

First, the immediate issue of communication. We have discussed back and forth a few options. One is the obvious Wiki system, which has its bitter opponents and its bitter proponents. As an interim solution this might come into play. In either case, if you look around the gentoo.org site, you'll see that a lot of things have been changing. First, we have moved servers (For mainly financial reasons). Second, the mailing lists have been changed to a more maintainable software rather than the web--based mailman wachamacallit. I saw a poster bitter and refusing to "never subscribe to any gentoo mailing list." I think this is rather unproductive, especially if you want to be informed. Yes, the lists had their quirks, and apologies for said quirks were duly posted.

Part of the other changes have involved moving to a more XML based solution for the website (using AxKit in fact -- plone was discussed as an option). The idea behind the new move (which is still in progress, the CVS updates page, for instance, is coming back; as are list archives) is to allow for a more dynamic site over all. Things like weekly updates, more news, etc will become a lot more common.

Additionally, the site will be divided furtrher into architecture specific sections, with news and updates for your preferred architecture. Each section will have some sort of forum of feedback and communication between the users and the developers.

As for the freeze (this came up in IRC today, funnily enough). It has been off for a long time now, ever since we put into place the ~architecture KEYWORDS based masking. I posted a news item about that, myself on the gentoo.org site. For the record (and to be completely clear) there is NO freeze in place, and likely never will be thanks to the enhanced KEYWORDS. In that vein, we are also looking at a more modular masking method which doesn't get over-written with an emerge rsync.

That segues me into issues for 1.4_final. First off, there are two masked ebuilds for gcc (2.95.3-r8 and 3.2-r5) which allow both to co-exist. We need testing on those, btw

. Also, glibc was a concern. It looks like we can go with 2.3.1, but we're testing that to make certain of it. Other things are X with the new freetype2 stuff; and I have been looking at trying to make the system db use db-4 exclusively instead of db1 and db3 together.

The other major thing is the GRP, the Gentoo Reference Platform, whereby we release tbz2's of packages (for every cpu, mind you, and this takes time). The idea is to get a gentoo install up and running with just tbz2 packages for all your system stuff. We are including Gnome2 and KDE3 packages in this. This does not mean we are becoming a binary distro; the idea is just to allow a faster initial install.

Also, we are looking at something called "cursingcow" as an ncurses based installer, which functions well on the ppc platform and is undergoing testing on the x86 platform.

As you know, java on gcc-3 systems was an issue, We are hoping the new source based java install puts those to rest.

That said, we are looking at 1.4_final to be released after KDE-3.1 sometime. So, while this is not a strict deadline, it is an indication of when to expect it.

If you have questions, please follow up here, or e-mail me.

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

Thanks a ton seemant for clearing all that up. I'm sure it will silence a lot of the whining around here

All of us users really appreciate you taking the time to come here and let us know about all the stuff that's going on. The website sounds like it'll be really cool when it's done.

rac · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 3:22 am Post subject:

seemant, thank you very much for taking the time to register and post here.
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For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder

pilla · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 3:44 am Post subject:

Great post. Maybe it deserves a separated, sticky thread, or maybe it could be moved to the anouncements forum.

BTW, thanks for you time.

bouncer · n00b Joined: 28 Sep 2002 Posts: 2

seemant: Thanks for jumping in. I as a non-paying user appreciate your willingness to update us.

The rest of you: Can it! You don't pay them to develop so don't demand status updates! Are they nice? Yes. Are they important? Maybe. Are they mandatory? Absolutely not. I find the mailing lists informative. If you want a newsletter, why not start by donating so they can hire someone to track all this stuff?! All this begging and pleading for info makes you look like Dilbert's Boss.

Now, I am willing to donate some time toward producing a newsletter/progress chart/whatever. If you are not willing to do the same... zip it because you have nothing to add here.

Jyrinx · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 8:14 am Post subject:

Wow, thanks a lot, seemant. That's precisely what I've been looking for :-D

Life is good. :-)

Glad to hear about what's going on ... especially about what's going on so I can know what's going on :-)

Bouncer, please don't be vindictive. We can finally calm down now; time to put aside the personal squabbles and get to work. (Whatever work might be ...)

Jyrinx
jyrinx@mindspring.com

g2boojum · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 1:57 pm Post subject: Gentoo 1.4 status update

I believe there is a plan to have a 1.4 to-do checklist available online, but 1.4 may actually come out before somebody gets around to doing that. In the meantime, a good way to generate your own list is to use bugzilla and in the "Email and Numbering" box check "bug owner", change the drop-down to "contains", and add "release" to the text box. That will generate a list of all bugs assigned to "release@gentoo.org"; those bugs are the ones that need to be solved before 1.4 releases. Nearly all of those bugs are installer-related. Although it's not on the list, there are also a couple of software packages that we would like to have in place before our release announcement. I know that kde-3.2 is one of the big ones, and I believe there is one or two more, but I don't remember which ones. For the most part, however, there is _very_ little difference, at the level of the gentoo packages, between the current release candidate and the forthcoming 1.4. In fact, the 1.4 profile has been fixed for some time now, so there will be no difference in the default system.

The ebuild freeze has ended. It did go on for an awfully long time, so the winnowing of the backlog of user-submitted e-builds is taking longer than we would like. If your e-build seems to be languishing, you might want to add a comment to that ebuild's bugzilla entry asking if there's something you can do to help (a polite way of giving the assigned developer a minor kick in the pants). If that doesn't work, and it seems the developer has dropped off the face of the planet, add a comment saying something along the lines of "bug languishing; developer awol?" and CC seemant@gentoo.org. Seemant can then reassign the bug.

I hope some of this helps. I won't guarantee that everything I've stated is completely accurate, but I do believe it to be so.

-g2boojum-

rungekutta · n00b Joined: 16 Nov 2002 Posts: 1

Does anyone know when the official Gentoo 1.5 release is going to be? I'm anxiously waiting for it... I suppose it's ready when it's ready, but I have an inexplicable urge to know *right now* :wink:

And while dwelling on version numbers, does anybody have inside info on a release date for the next windows version? hihihihi...

Quite an entertaining thread this one!

barret · n00b Joined: 09 Oct 2002 Posts: 9

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20485

I think he was just joking.
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pilla · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 5:32 pm Post subject:

what about gentoo 2.0, with gnu gcc 4??? :lol:

jlowell · Guru Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 389

Rather than take another stab at 1.4_rc2, I thought I'd wait until 1.4 was available. Has anyone any idea of what kind of wait we're talking about? I had the impression that release was imminent.

jlowell