Public SourceMage Discussion List

["Jose Bernardo Silva" <jbs AT bandos.homelinux.com>]

I like the chroot idea - it would allow some of us to donate a few spare cpu
cycles... And also would allow some more extensive testing. As a example, I
have found many problems with distcc, spells that would only cast if
MAKE_NJOBS=1, etc. With many different "tinderboxen" out there, these would be
more easy to catch and document.

I am also for the idea of casting a "random" list of spells. Since sorcery
does the dependency checking (assuming the spell writter put all the
dependencies correctly), it might be a more extensive method than simply going
over the grimoire sequencially, as that way only the fastest machine/cluster
(think distcc) would catch the most bugs, the other tinderboxen would be
always playing catch up.

---
Jose Bernardo B R Silva             | Source Mage GNU/Linux Section Guru
jbernardo AT sourcemage.org            | http://www.sourcemage.org
http://counter.li.org #245602
http://cosmos.oninetspeed.pt/jose.bernardo
jbs AT bandos.homelinux.com


---------- Original Message -----------
From: Duane Malcolm <d.malcolm AT auckland.ac.nz>
To: Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>
Cc: Source Mage - Users <sm-users AT lists.ibiblio.org>,
sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org, Source Mage - Grimoire
<sm-grimoire AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 15:40:41 +1200
Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Re: [SM-Grimoire] Re: [SM-Users] tinderboxes

> Andrew wrote:
> 
> >>I had thought to use tinderboxes purely to test software, the wetware and 
> >>UI 
> >>problem with sorcery i see as a different issue. Having said that i do 
> >>see 
> >>how it could be used to report bugs for sorcery, but it would be hard to 
> >>simulate the stupidity of some people... Should we really try to do that 
> >>or 
> >>should we help the sorcery team idiot-proof their code some other way ?
> >>
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >I guess im not doing a good job explaining myself. Im not really talking
> >about idiot-proofness. More along the lines of some newbie out there
> >wants to install some number of spells and following the instructions
> >types cast <list>, then proceeds to let all the defaults go by (or
> >something). There arent many real problems with sorcery at this point,
> >at least very few that a tinderbox the way I think we are envisioning
> >it can catch. What I think we are after is making sure spells install
> >properly under different conditions, which we as developers cant always
> >catch since we dont have the time to test our spells manually on n
> >different setups.
> >
> >Anyone else interested? How about that irc design meeting?
> >
> There wouldn't be much work in implementing both systems would 
> there. One system casts a random list of spells to check different 
> configurations and the other casts a fixed list of spells, which are 
> the basic install spells (base system, xfree, maybe ked and gnome). 
> And then reporting on sucesses and failures.
> 
> I would support a chroot system, where while I sleep I'll tell my PC 
> to go into tinderbox mode (chroot) and cast 8 hours of random spells 
> and report on them. Then it either submits the report or I could 
> browse it, for simple problems such as failed download due to no 
> network, and then manually commit it.
> 
> I am interested in the reporting system and how to collate the 
> reports in an intelligently to find problems.
> 
> "The FireBrigade" isn't really magic oriented is it??
> 
> Duane.
> 
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------- End of Original Message -------