Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 05:01:45AM +0800, Thomas Blanchin wrote:
> Hello sourcemagers.
> 
> I had not used sourcemage since a long time because of some 
> unsupported hardware problem. I was happy to test the new ppc-iso with 
> 2.6.9 and nptl support. THe iso was pretty good, and I reported the 
> few bugs I encountered to benoit. The thing that surprised me, is that 
> the iso installs gcc-3.4.3 and glibc_20041110, which arn't either in 
> the stable and in the test grimoire.

Those spells aren't stable.

> 
> Then, I told benoit about that, and he said me that the easyest way to 
> have nptl support on ppc, was to modify the gcc and glibc spells so 
> that sorcery installs other realeases than them provided by stable and 
> test grimoire. Problem is that : the gcc and glibc spells provided by 
> stable or test make a brand new installed software to crash, because 
> of some problem of those 2 versions on ppc.

When an official ISO comes out, gcc-3.4.x and a more recent glibc 
snapshot should be in place in the stable grimoire.

Remember, you're using a test iso.

> 
> I have the feeling that so many people modify their grimoire in order 
> to correct buggs generated by stable, 

It's not a bug in stable.

> that nobody use stable grimoire, 

I do all the time.  Most of the machines at work are running stable with 
no issues at all.

> and also become more and more deprecated. 

We're talking two weeks behind updates and gcc updates when the 
important programs are known to compile with them.  Not deprecated at all.

> It looks that some people 
> tries to do some work in order to improve the situation, but if the 
> work they do is not what they are asked to do for the team, they are 
> asked to stop.

Looks can be deceiving.  It's also good to talk directly (in English, we 
say, "Frankly", derived from "French") about specific problems rather 
than to mention them sideways.

A clear solution is to have benoit install a custom grimoire with all 
his fixes onto the test iso.  They don't get trammeled on update, and, 
if he commits them to perforce, we can see exactly what he's having 
issues with so we can pull the fixes into test and then to stable.

Or he can commit to devel and ask for quick testing before we do an 
early pull to stable.  In any case, if it hit perforce where other 
developers can see active, immediate feedback, we'd actually know about 
the problems before they become a problem.  The feedback cycle works 
both ways.

> 
> Do grimoire team realize that many people leave sorcery very quickly 
> because of such problems ? Unfortunatly, that's what I just did, 
> because gcc-3.4.x and a higher version of glibc is required in order 
> to have a correct PPC system.

You use a test iso with nptl before it's declared stable on ppc, and 
you're calling it a bug enough to "leave sorcery".  Is that what you're 
saying?  Hold one thing, fix twenty things tends to be better than fix 
one thing, break twenty things, at least on stable -- all "major 
release" isos are by definition stable because they are full releases.

Pull from the devel grimoire, hold gcc and glibc, or one of the many 
other techniques on a test system to test it.  Test systems are not 
guaranteed to be a "correct system" as you say, so I'm unsure of why you 
are demanding this of us.

> 
> I already add reported a bug the 2004-07-18, look at bug 7131. Has 
> something changed for the gcc spell in 7 months ?

Things are pretty close to ready, I gather.  Things are ready when they 
are ready in Source Mage.  We have no boss screaming down our necks to 
commit shit code into the latest Microsoft product.

> 
> Maybe not enough people works on ppc to understand what I'm talking 
> about, but the repetitive problems makes me crazy enough.

I ran PPC after the first ISO came out on it.  Seriously, I know all 
about it.  Instead of complaining about a lack of features or stability 
(it didn't even have mac-fdisk at the time!), I submitted a few bugs and 
got a few things fixed.  All the fixes add up to a quality release, but 
it takes time and patience at first.

> 
> Is the team motivated to show sourcemage to the world, or do they just 
> want their system to be working on their machine?

Source Mage gets one opportunity at 1.0.  Of course we take it 
seriously.  A lot of serious revamping has gone on especially in the 
last year, but, you know, if the team leaders are holding back one thing 
to stabilize another, I think we should at least either bide our time or 
fix bugs related to the reason for holding it back.  Shouting from the 
sidelines that you don't get all the right versions matched up on a test 
iso confuses me though, and surely won't get anything done the way you 
want it.

> 
> good by and good luck. sorry my french english.
> elshaa.

Good luck to you too in getting your PPC install just the way you like 
it,

Seth

-- 
Seth Alan Woolley [seth at positivism.org], SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
Key id EF10E21A = 36AD 8A92 8499 8439 E6A8  3724 D437 AF5D EF10 E21A
http://smgl.positivism.org:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xEF10E21A
Security Team Leader Source Mage GNU/Linux http://www.sourcemage.org

Attachment: pgpwj5axkZWZW.pgp
Description: PGP signature