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Bob P
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Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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omp
Retired Dev
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
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Location: Glendale, California
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 Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:32 am Post subject: Re: Rockhopper! |
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A link to a picture of pengins... how smart of you. 
Oh well, the link is in your sig. 
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mark_alec
Bodhisattva
Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 6066
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:47 am Post subject: |
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| Does this mean jackass is dead? If so, what are you doing in the 'Jackass! Development Labs'? |
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StringCheesian
l33t
Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Posts: 887
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| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:12 pm Post subject: Re: Rockhopper! |
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| omp wrote: | | A link to a picture of pengins... how smart of you. |
Jackass and Rockhopper are kinds of penguins. So that's probably the reason for the picture. |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| mark_alec wrote: | | Does this mean jackass is dead? If so, what are you doing in the 'Jackass! Development Labs'? |
I realize that I'm a little late in providing a detailed description for those people who haven't taken the time to read the explanations that are on the website, so I'll try to explain them a bit here. I guess that this announcement fall is into the "better late than never" category.
Jackass! has always been a project dedicated to bringing a STABLE AS ROCK testing-branch toolkit to the x86 platform that contains:
* Testing Branch GCC 3.4.x
* Integrated NPTL Support
* Processor Specific Builds
* Highly Optimized CFLAGS for GCC 3.4.x
* Is STABLE AS ROCK
In constast, Rockhopper! brings an EXPERIMENTAL hard-masked toolkit to the x86 platform that contains:
* Hard-Masked GCC 4.0 and 4.1-beta
* Integrated NPTL Support
* Processor Specific Builds
* Optimized Linker Flags for GCC 4.x
* STABLE, but LESS STABLE than Jackass!
So does Rockhopper! mean the end of Jackass!? Well, no. Gentoo users who are interested in a state-of-the-art, ROCK STABLE, GCC 3.4.4 system still don't have any choice other than to go with Jackass! or to perform a Stage 1/3 install. Hopefully this will change when Gentoo 2006.0 comes along, but I've been saying that since I was using Gentoo 2004.3 and was looking forward to the release of Gentoo 2005.0. 
Regardless of what Gentoo decides to do with the Stable release branch in its 2006.0 release, Gentoo users who are interested in testing the latest flavors of hard-masked GCC 4.x don't have access to an official set of experimental installation media. Rockhopper! solves the problem of the empty "/experimental" directory that lives on the Gentoo mirrors.
With Rockhopper!, Gentoo users now have the choice of using a pre-packaged, canned GCC 4.x installation where no canned installation had existed before. This allows the user to bypass the rather complicated and arduous task of rebuilding the system toolkit and going through the many steps of upgrading to a GCC 4.x compiler and then redundantly rebuilding their system files.
The GCC 4.0 version of Rockhopper! is actually quite stable and widely compatible with a great many ebuilds. That is more than can be said for the GCC 4.1-beta version of Rockhopper!, which is actually very stable but fails to compile its fair share of ebuilds. Those problems are entirely a function of the ongoing development of the GCC 4.1-beta compiler and of ebuild maintenance.
Rockhopper! was never intended to replace Jackass! -- Just as Jackass! was intended as a vehicle to encourage users to start using Gentoo's testing branch compilers, Rockhopper! is intended as a vehicle to encourage Gentoo users to start using Gentoo's experimental branch compilers. Experience has shown that the number of Gentoo users that are using the testing branch and hard-masked toolkits has to reach a state of critical mass in order to accelerate the momentum in the development of Gentoo's hard-masked compilers.
I hate to say it, but its been somewhat disappointing to see Gentoo fall behind some of the other distributions like Debian and Ubuntu that are already offering GCC 4.0.2 as pre-built media in their testing branch packages. Rockhopper! is designed to fill in this gap, making pre-built distribution media available to bring Gentoo up to speed with some of the other distros. Hopefully, more users using GCC 4.0.2 will mean more users filing bug reports and contributing patches, and this will accelerate the momentum in the development of GCC 4.0.2 for Gentoo as a Community-based effort.
Regarding GCC 4.1-beta, there have been a number of impediments that have been placed in the way of user migration from GCC 3.4.4 and GCC 4.0.2 to GCC 4.1-beta. Rockhopper! for GCC 4.1-beta solves these problems, and effectively allows the user who is willing to participate in beta testing the latest GCC compiler to leapfrog over the many arcane and cryptically documented obstacles that exist (either intentionally or unintentionally) in the path of GCC migration. Hopefully, as more users begin to use these highly experimental compilers, Gentoo on these compilers will reach a state of critical mass sufficient to push community-based development forward.
So to finally get back to answering your question, no Rockhopper! doesn't render Jackass! obsolete. Instead, it opens another door for Gentoo users that had previuosly been locked. Hopefully Gentoo 2006.0 will contain all of the features that are currently only available in Jackass! 2005.x. Only that would render the current version of Jackass! obsolete, and that would give Jackass! yet another opportunity to introduce a new update to its toolkit and to raise the bar for Gentoo yet another time. 
Edit: fixed a typo where "stable" should have said "testing"
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Last edited by Bob P on Sun Dec 11, 2005 8:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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renrutal
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 26 Mar 2005
Posts: 135
Location: Brazil
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 12:50 am Post subject: |
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I'm really leaning towards building my system from scratch with Jackass, but the marketing babble, buzzwords and excess of exclamations are scaring me.  |
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cheater1034
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Joined: 09 Sep 2004
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:14 am Post subject: |
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could you post the make.conf used to build rockhopper? (4.0 and 4.1)?
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Tiger683
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Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 1347
Location: Heffner's House
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| cheater1034 wrote: | | could you post the make.conf used to build rockhopper? (4.0 and 4.1)? |
If built while properly using .spec files, the newest catalyst puts it into the stage tarball's make.conf
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Jovana
n00b
Joined: 23 Nov 2005
Posts: 53
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 6:12 am Post subject: |
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| How about support for the AMD64? Can you build an 64bit system or olny 32bit? |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 10:14 am Post subject: |
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| Jovana wrote: | | How about support for the AMD64? Can you build an 64bit system or olny 32bit? |
No, there is no support for AMD64, though I could build an AMD64 version if there were enough interest to support it. This subject has been beaten to death in the Jackass! threads, so I really wish that people would stop asking about it.
Rockhopper is distributed as a 686-only build because it is EXPERIMENTAL. If you want another arch then YOU need to update the architecture settings and rebuild it yourself. Its more than enough effort for me to work on rebuilding the entire Rockhopper system as often as GCC 4.1-beta ebuilds are made available in the portage tree, which currently occurs on a weekly basis. People who ask for gratuitous handouts like yours just have absolutely NO CLUE what they're asking for.
There's just no way that its humanly possible for me to build an experimental test build for 8 different architectures every week -- that is, unless somebody is willing to pay me to drop everything that I am doing and dedicate my life to working on Rockhopper! as a full time job, complete with salary and benefits commensurate with my level of expertise. Until that happens, I don't take requests.
Sorry, but if you want AMD64 then you're just going to have to do some compiling of your own. If you've got an AMD64 you have a computer that is faster than anything I own. Get Busy. Asking for me to do everything for you clearly demonstrates that you think that my time is less valuable than yours. If what I give away isn't good enough and you feel that you need something more, your only options are to do it yourself or to pay somebody else to do it for you.
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Jovana
n00b
Joined: 23 Nov 2005
Posts: 53
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| Bob P wrote: | | Jovana wrote: | | How about support for the AMD64? Can you build an 64bit system or olny 32bit? |
No, there is no support for AMD64, though I could build an AMD64 version if there were enough interest to support it. This subject has been beaten to death in the Jackass! threads, so I really wish that people would stop asking about it.
Rockhopper is distributed as a 686-only build because it is EXPERIMENTAL. If you want another arch then YOU need to update the architecture settings and rebuild it yourself. Its more than enough effort for me to work on rebuilding the entire Rockhopper system as often as GCC 4.1-beta ebuilds are made available in the portage tree, which currently occurs on a weekly basis. People who ask for gratuitous handouts like yours just have absolutely NO CLUE what they're asking for.
There's just no way that its humanly possible for me to build an experimental test build for 8 different architectures every week -- that is, unless somebody is willing to pay me to drop everything that I am doing and dedicate my life to working on Rockhopper! as a full time job, complete with salary and benefits commensurate with my level of expertise. Until that happens, I don't take requests.
Sorry, but if you want AMD64 then you're just going to have to do some compiling of your own. If you've got an AMD64 you have a computer that is faster than anything I own. Get Busy. Asking for me to do everything for you clearly demonstrates that you think that my time is less valuable than yours. If what I give away isn't good enough and you feel that you need something more, your only options are to do it yourself or to pay somebody else to do it for you. |
Whoo, peace men!
I don't ask if YOU want to build / make an AMD64 versie. All I want to know is, if it's possible to build a 64bit version based on the jackass or rockhoper builds. And you give me the answer somewhere between your text. So thanks for your answer and your great work! No hard feelings at all (I hope also from your site).
(Need ssh acces to my 64bit system, and "feel" now fast it is? Just ask!)  |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:18 am Post subject: |
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don't worry, i don't have any hard feelings toward anyone. i just think that people need enough background information to understand how much they're asking for when it seems to me that they don't. there are an awful lot of people who just don't understand how much work is involved in building an operating system, and replicating that operating system for an array of different processors.
an awful lot of people think that its a pretty simple undertaking, because they're spoiled by getting instantaneous gratification when everything that they ask for is always free. i build architecture more architecture-specific x86 stage 3 tarballs than Gentoo does, even though i'm ONE man, and they're an entire ARMY of developers. people who ask for more and more just don't understand what they're asking for, so i just want to provide enough information to give them enough perspective to understand the nature of their requests. it seems that its always the new users who don't have much perspective on this sort of thing.
i don't have a problem with anyone having a free lunch on any of my projects. that's what they're here for. granted, i think that its only appropriate that everyone who uses my stuff should give me something in return, but some people are even too stingy to make a post or send me an email to say thanks. i'd appreciate it if anyone who has a special request were kind enough to support the project before asking for something additional, but i guess that its just not human nature to do that. with that in mind, i think you can understand why i get really, really tired of people asking me to do something extra for them without understanding how much they're asking for.
just to try to clarify this point, Jackass! is a stable project that is built to support a wide variety of architectures. Rockhopper! is an experimental platform. If I update it regularly to keep pace with the rapid rate of release of new (weekly) updates to GCC 4.1.0-beta, I don't have time to build a bunch of processor-specific tarballs every week. if that is going to happen, I have to build for the lowest common denominator, and then the users have to rebuild if they want to employ architecture specific builds. That is exactly what my testers are doing, and if you're interested in being part of the Gentoo beta testing program, a little compiling shouldn't scare you.
Rockhopper! is designed to provide a properly built GCC 4.x toolkit as an ENTRY POINT into the Gentoo Beta Testing Program. It is NOT designed to be a customized turnkey platform for everyone. I've done all of the hard work for you, to ensure that you have a properly built 686-chost toolkit as a starting point. All that you have to do is unpackage the tarball and start testing. IME there's really no point in architecture-specific builds at this early development stage of the game. Most users will probably just use i686 -- I know that I would. But if you want something else, its simple enough for you to just change your architecture specification and do a couple of emerge -e systems -- and then you're done with it. Its not at all hard.
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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in keeping with the constantly changing nature of Gentoo, I've been providing updates to Rockhopper! as often as Gentoo GCC ebuild updates are published. that's why there have been 4.1 versions of Rockhopper! moving to the download mirrors in correspondence with all of the new GCC 4.x ebuild releases.
just in case you haven't been watching, GCC 4.1.0-beta has been updated on 12/06, 12/16 and 12/13. Rockhopper! builds have been published within a day or two of each of these GCC updates.
Just as rockhopper-4.0-20051216 followed gcc-4.02 patches...
Just as rockhopper-4.1-20051207 followed gcc-4.1-20051206...
Just as rockhopper-4.1-20051216 followed gcc-4.1-20051216...
rockhopper-4.1-20051226 follows gcc-4.1-20051223.
The latest update to Rockhopper! is being pushed to the download mirrors today. Some of the mirrors should have the update within a few hours, and all of the mirrors should carry the update within 24 hours.
Have Fun!
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:53 am Post subject: |
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Announcements:
 Rockhopper! 4.1 Now that there's a new GCC 4.1 beta ebuild dated 20051230, I'll be publishing a 20051231 edition of Rockhopper! to feature the latest toolkit later today. Follow-up in the Rockhopper! thread and watch the Jackass! mirrors if you're interested.
Jackass! 2006.0 with GCC 3.4.5 People interested in becoming official Jackass! beta testers are invited to contact me regarding beta testing of Jackass! 2006.0. The build is finished, and it features GCC 3.4.5. Testers should have some familiarity with Gentoo Stage 3 installs, and previous versions of Jackass!, and must be willing to perform frequent test installs. Follow-up by PM if interested.
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pjesi
n00b
Joined: 02 Apr 2004
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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I'm interested in building stage tarballs like you are doing here and in the Jackass! (and other similar projects). But I'm missing out the procedure when the system installation is complete and you have a stage tarball. Is this done with like stage4 methods or?
Simple overview of the steps needed to do this would be very well appreciated (unless it is just simple stage4 script).
btw. Thumbs up for the Stage 1/3 install method it has been my install doc for gentoo since last summer but I never commented on it |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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i've written a number of scripts by hand to do the tarball building job. if you're interested in this sort of thing, you may be better off looking at catalyst. that's what Gentoo uses to build Gentoo. its in the portage tree.
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pjesi
n00b
Joined: 02 Apr 2004
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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Yes I looked at catalyst after I submitted last post and used it to create my own stage1-3 tarballs with gcc 3.4.4 but I want much more control over the build so I guess I'm better of by using scripts to build the tarball after the system is like I want it to look like.
Unless that can easily be done with catalyst but I have to look better into it. |
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maquiz
n00b
Joined: 13 May 2003
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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I tried to download the rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2 file from different mirrors,
but from each mirror I get md5-errors. Could you please re-upload or check the files?
Keep up the good work. |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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this is the correct md5sum for the Rockhopper! 4.0 file dated 12/16:
| Code: | # md5sum rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2
e2e0a4c82874b20e7e86f0b869efce81 rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2 |
thanks!
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maquiz
n00b
Joined: 13 May 2003
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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The md5sum is correct now, but when I do | Code: | | tar -xvjpf rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2 |
I get the error
| Code: | | bzip2: (stdin) is not a bzip2 file |
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:49 am Post subject: |
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hmm. it would have saved us both some time if you had started off by mentioning that the file on the mirror was not a functional archive. 
here is the data for the file as it sits on my development box.
| Code: | # cat rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2.md5
1b58ef3066dd17ffb76d78c80d04dc2c rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2
# md5sum rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2
1b58ef3066dd17ffb76d78c80d04dc2c rockhopper-4.0-alpha-i686-20051216.tar.bz2 |
i'm reposting the file, and the mirrors will begin to resync within a few hours. they should all have it within 24 hours. to avoid any confusion, i'll touch the files with today's datestamp so you'll be able to see the updates.
thanks for pointing out the problem. let me know if there's anything else.
bob
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Marx
n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 19
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| Just wanted to let you know it works perfectly here, and I'm loving every moment of it |
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thoffmeyer
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Apr 2004
Posts: 208
Location: GMT -5 Hours
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:52 am Post subject: |
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I shall have to try this out sooner or later
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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Rockhopper! 4.0 Update: 20060106
Thinking that GCC 4.0.2 had been left to die on the vine, I was a bit surprised to see a new patch set come out this week. In honor of the new patches to GCC 4.0.2 there's a new version of Rockhopper! 4.0 being pushed out to the mirrors today. Significant upgrades include:
GCC 4.0.2-r3 patches, 2006-01-04
Glibc 2.3.6-r2
The file will have today's date stamp on it and it should hit all of the mirrors tonight.
Have Fun!
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Bob P
Advocate
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
Posts: 3355
Location: Jackass! Development Labs
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| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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Just to keep everyone in the loop -- there was an alpha release of Rockhopper! 4.1 planned for today that included the 20060106 patches to GCC 4.1-beta and Glibc. Unfortunately, my Athlon-XP released its magic smoke last night, so this weekend's Jackass! 2006.0 and Rockhopper! 4.1 test builds are going to be delayed until some major hardware problems get resolved...
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