| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
dberkholz
Retired Dev
Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 1008
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
 Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:06 am Post subject: [NEWS] New release strategy to provide more current media |
 |
|
This forums thread is for discussion of the www.gentoo.org posting, "New release strategy to provide more current install media." Post your comments and suggestions here.
| Quote: | In future releases, Gentoo will focus on a more back-to-basics approach that will give you up-to-date install media on a regular basis and make much better use of our human resources. We're looking into automated weekly builds of the minimal CDs and stage tarballs as well as maybe an annual LiveCD release. We will keep you updated as we decide on the details of this new approach.
Consequently, we're canceling the 2008.1 release. The release engineering team has to reconsider its priorities—we overstretched our human resources during the prolonged 2008.0 release process. This caused too much stress for our release engineers and multiple postponements of the release.
You can help! The release engineering team is looking for new volunteers because it perpetually has a severe lack of manpower. We are particularly looking for people with a good grasp of ebuild development and the ability to debug/fix problems that crop up during building and testing of the stage tarballs and ISO images. We will update the staffing needs page with more details. |
Last edited by dberkholz on Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:24 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
frenkel
Veteran
Joined: 13 May 2003
Posts: 1034
Location: .nl
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
| This is great news, the basic cd's and stages are the only things that matter to me! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sven_sol
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 120
Location: Royston, Herts. UK
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
to be honest, I've never used a full-fat CD, just the minimal install.
Good idea guys!
Sven
_________________
Tua mater tam antiqua ut linguam latinam loquatur
Linux User: #405647 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dagger
Retired Dev
Joined: 11 Jun 2003
Posts: 765
Location: UK
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
If there is anything I can help with, please give me a shout.
_________________
95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
Join the FSF as an Associate Member!
Post under CC license. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
soth
Apprentice
Joined: 12 Sep 2003
Posts: 207
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
++ sven_sol
It's all I've ever needed.
Good decision!
_________________
- Never argue with an idiot. They just drag you down to your level and beat you with experience.
Join the adopt an unanswered post initiative today |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Naib
Watchman
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6065
Location: Removed by Neddy
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
finally commonsense returning
_________________
| Quote: | | Removed by Chiitoo |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
zaccret
n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2007
Posts: 18
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I think it is a really good strategy. As an actual user, I really rarely use the LiveCD. But the minimal CD sometimes helps (and for new users too), I hope you will soon be able to automate weekly builds of the minimal CDs, THIS will be the great new! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rogerx
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Apr 2004
Posts: 118
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:38 am Post subject: Minimal sometimes works, but usually the LiveCD always works |
|
|
If the entire task of building the Minimal CDroms, go for it. I think, in the long run, will provide more stable Minimal Cdroms. (Noticed there is a bug present in the Minimal CDroms, but the LiveCD doesn't have the bug ... as such, I end-up using both.)
One thing to note, man files were not in the last CDrom builds. Not good when I need to manually execute e2fsck, once in a blue moon! (e2fsck -h is basically useless as it only outputs the more common options!)
As for releases, it really doesn't matter AS LONG AS Gnome and it's Libraries are unmasked in a timely manner! (I'd hate to wait a 1+ years for recently released Gnome releases! In the past, devs wait for the Gentoo Release to unmask such packages.)
One idea, is to get an text based user interface installer into the Minimal. And, then just roll the graphical installer on top of it for the big LiveCD. This way, the Release Team should only have to worry about the graphical user interface bugs. With a whole year to work towards a release, all bugs for the main (text ui) installer code should be worked-out by then.
Hey. Whatever works best as we're leading the way for the rest of the Distros! 
_________________
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
andretti
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 94
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
I think this is a wise decision. Although I'm not an expert in gentoo, I feel quite comfortable using the minimum stage.
I personally believes having "guides to create" may be more useful than the Live CD and stage3 product itself. Nevertheless, if we teach more people to create (or there are more people around capable of doing it), this ultimately would ease pressure on human resources... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
yoshi314
l33t
Joined: 30 Dec 2004
Posts: 850
Location: PL
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | to be honest, I've never used a full-fat CD, just the minimal install. |
i've never used gentoo's livecds. minimal or not.
recent knoppix or other livecd + fresh stage always did the trick.
i think it's good to focus on minimal install cds. they could come with elinks browser, for convenience, though
_________________
~amd64
shrink your /usr/portage with squashfs+aufs |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dstcruz
n00b
Joined: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 17
Location: TN
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:57 pm Post subject: w00t! |
|
|
| +1 to that. I don't think I've ever installed Gentoo with a liveCD. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dirk_salewski
Apprentice
Joined: 04 Jun 2003
Posts: 216
Location: Germany
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
There's one thing that caught my attention above all:
| Quote: | | we overstretched our human resources during the prolonged 2008.0 release process |
I know that the gentoo installer is discussed in another thread, but it seems to me that these two issues might be somewhat interrelated:
Some years ago Gentoo managed to become THE distro to use, out of the blue, despite an admittedly cumbersome setup process. I don't want to take the back-to-the-roots-position, stating that Gentoo is "c00ler" than anything precisely because of its remarkably rocky setup. On the other hand, though, that doesn't necessarily mean that Gentoo benefits from an installer when it comes to attracting new users or keeping existing ones with us. So, if there is some kind of management board that deliberately allocates developer resources to the installer, I'd vote to stop this practice and use the resources on release or anything else.
That wouldn't necessarily mean that development of the installer had to stop - it would just be more a related project than an official one, like e.g. paludis.
The best way to do it would probably be to make a poll about this. If it turns out that the installer is considered not necessary by the majority of the current user base but frequent releases or up-to-date firefox are, then I'd proceed accordingly. Happy users are the best advertisement for the project. So, if the overstretching of resources can be resolved in such a way, I'd second this proposition: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-700118-highlight-installer.html
Greetings,
Dirk
_________________
Egal was Du kochst: Karl Marx. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
chtof
n00b
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 62
Location: France
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: How it works to contribute to this project ? |
|
|
| Hi ! Who can I contact to contribute ? Randomly one of the developers ? Or a developer who is in my interest and it will propose me some tasks ? In other words, how it works to participate to this project ? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
juangiordana
n00b
Joined: 08 May 2008
Posts: 3
Location: Santa Fe, Argentina
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: Suggestions |
|
|
- Take into account the design of this area on the web page, having to look at 100 places to download something is really annoying and will confuse people who wants to begin playing with the distro.
- You should also recommend people or point, in some way, to use a thumb drive installation instead of burning a CD each time.
If I unsderstand well, there will be no GTK installer on it, just a weekly compilation of stage3 and portage tarballs. Please, clarify that. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dberkholz
Retired Dev
Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 1008
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| dirk_salewski wrote: | | So, if there is some kind of management board that deliberately allocates developer resources to the installer, I'd vote to stop this practice and use the resources on release or anything else. |
There isn't. Since Gentoo's an all-volunteer project, people work on whatever they want to work on. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Xake
Guru
Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 588
Location: Göteborg, the rainy part of scandinavia
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 5:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This will go well with a nice release soon, release often...
That way if there is a minor issue it will soon be taken care of, and there will soon be a live-cd with the fix to try out.
Also if the liveCD/stages will follow portage, then we will not have problems like outdated kernel and/or utilities (have been bitten by this).
And I think having a livecd with recent things on could be a nice thing as those time I have been bitten by "old-things-on-live-media" hunting around internet finding a CD with the newer stuff can be pretty boring and time-consuming...
That said I hope the installer does not go away (and including the text installer on the minimal could also be a good idea for testing out the installer-core). It have saved me lots of time when setting up new machines. The only thing it currently lacks from my point of view is support for more choices. I would love to be able to install hardened (no need for GRP) with the help of the installer, and support for lvm/dmcrypt and alike. It does not have to be able to partition it, just install onto it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
node_one
Apprentice
Joined: 07 Apr 2008
Posts: 165
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:02 pm Post subject: Re: How it works to contribute to this project ? |
|
|
| chtof wrote: | | Hi ! Who can I contact to contribute ? Randomly one of the developers ? Or a developer who is in my interest and it will propose me some tasks ? In other words, how it works to participate to this project ? |
See this topic. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SirYes
Apprentice
Joined: 15 Jan 2006
Posts: 282
Location: Lodz, Poland
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| andretti wrote: | I think this is a wise decision. Although I'm not an expert in gentoo, I feel quite comfortable using the minimum stage.
I personally believes having "guides to create" may be more useful than the Live CD and stage3 product itself. Nevertheless, if we teach more people to create (or there are more people around capable of doing it), this ultimately would ease pressure on human resources... |
May I repeat that I was concerned about the installer the very moment is started to exist?
Just look at this old post of mine. Now scroll back to today and call me a visionist.
Finally the installer became LiveCD, which now turned out to be troublesome to support. Oh, the irony.
On the positive note, I recently finished two fresh Gentoo installs on a new 4-core Phenom and Core2 Duo laptop.
Boy, they are fast! I hope you all devs will be okay. 
_________________
My blog: In search for ultimate programming language |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
elcugo
n00b
Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Posts: 9
Location: México
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
+1
I think the installer and LiveCD are a bit pointless for Gentoo, you only need to install ONCE, everything else is done via portage.
_________________
Sign: File not found. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cassiol
Guru
Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Posts: 304
Location: /BR/SC/FLORIPA
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
helloo
are great news.
i think minimal cd is everything gentoo needs, but need add more hardware support.
i know are many new hardware, but if everyone help
for the minimal CD does not get too big maybe two minimal cds: desktop minimal cd and server minimal cd
are only ideias.
_________________
before post......... try that search in google: site:forums.gentoo.org your question
please add [SOLVED] when your question is solved |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Xake
Guru
Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 588
Location: Göteborg, the rainy part of scandinavia
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| cassiol wrote: | for the minimal CD does not get too big maybe two minimal cds: desktop minimal cd and server minimal cd
are only ideias. |
And what should de diffrence between them be? And the size of the current minimal livecd is not massive, and I do not think people will complain about it growing some megs for handling more hardware.
The minimal livecd is in the rest exactly minimal. The only thing it does (and should do) is leave you with a working network and a working shell you can do something from.
The only thing I miss is maybe an easy interface for configuring wireless, setting up a standard wep/wpa connection should not need so much work. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kernelOfTruth
Watchman
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 6111
Location: Vienna, Austria; Germany; hello world :)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hwoarang
Retired Dev
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 701
Location: Leeds, UK
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ah I see
I agree with the new strategy . Seems better and will manage the manpower more effectivly  . Gentoo users are the most active users since the gentoo bugzilla has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge traffic .
Keep up the good work guys
Long live Gentoo !! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
isilia
Apprentice
Joined: 25 Feb 2008
Posts: 177
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Great news! I have to admit I used the live DVD once though. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
|
| Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
That's a great news, I used to install Gentoo with the Stages and Snapshot by Daniel Robbins 
It will save a lot of compilation time for a new user.
Last edited by d2_racing on Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Gentoo Chat
