Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

So the release process officially starts today. There was some talk
on irc in greater detail of how to test. None of this is set in stone
yet, though, Im just making it up as I go along :-) I anticipate things
evolving over several cycles as all of us try this and figure out what
works and what doesnt.

A number of people have signed up for spells on the wiki[0]. Some still
remain however, and we need people to pick them up (this means you). Many
hands make light work, so please if you havent yet take one, or two :-) If
you're not a developer and looking for a way to help with smgl, this is an
easy way to get your feet wet. Here are the remaining basesystem spells:

basesystem (the profile spell)
bash
binutils
bison
bzip2
cpio
e2fsprogs
flex
gcc
gettext
gnupg
grub
gzip
iana-etc
init.d
less
locale
m4
make
mktemp
module-init-tools
nano
net-tools
patch
perl
procps
sed
shadow
simpleinit-msb
smgl-archspecs
smgl-fhs
texinfo
unzip
util-linux
zlib

Some of these might be accounted for by someone, if that someone is you,
can you please update the wiki. Thanks :-)

There was some chatter on irc over the implementation of the "signing off"
procedure. Here's where things are (again not set in stone). Dinolinux has
volunteered to get a stable (0.4) chroot tarball for testing purposes. If
you're already are running stable somewhere, you dont need to wait, just
test with that. Otherwise, download the chroot once it becomes available.

In the meantime search bugzilla for bugs with your spells, fix those
you consider gating, note those you dont consider gating on the wiki.

Test your spells by first installing them in the stable environment
(if not already installed), then add stable-rc (0.6) and try updating
the spell. If the spell is broken and wont install from stable,
then just try installing it straight from stable-rc.  Whatever path
applies, and whatever issues you find, if any, note them on the wiki
page. File bugs when appropriate. If you think a bug is "non-gating",
state that. Im deliberatly not defining "gating" in any formal way
right now.

Stable chroot production this time around will use a base install from
the latest released iso and then updated to stable 0.4. For subsequent
cycles a new chroot will come from running sorcery system-update in the
previous one. We'll keep system-updating the chroot until theres a new
iso with which to make a new chroot from (or something, we'll figure
that out later). I think we'll do that system-update in the chroot before
the stable release, so the chroot will be available immediatly for the
next cycle.

In short: pick some spells, note them on the wiki, fix any gating
bugs you find in bugzilla, download the stable chroot tarball when it
becomes available, test a spell upgrade to stable-rc, fix any issues
you find. When you're done, sign-off on those spells on the wiki.

Of course, any suggestions or ideas are welcome.

-Andrew

[0] http://wiki.sourcemage.org/Stable-0.6