[oi-dev] Plan for Hipster SPARC edition

[Gary Mills]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 07:06:16PM +0200, Adam Števko wrote:
> 
>    I will keep this short as I will be repeating what disccused the last
>    time. I am not very happy about this because it evolved exactly like I
>    thought it would. More message are inline.

What you said before inspired me to move the project along while at
the same time providing opportunities for cooperation between SPARC
developers.

I intend what I add below to be new information.

>    On 21 Jun 2017, at 23:30, Gary Mills <[1]gary_mills at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
>    I've now completed my build of oi-userland on SPARC hardware, at least
>    to the extent that was possible with oi_151a8 .  Yes, the latest OI
>    SPARC ISO is version oi_151a8 .  This is a major obstacle to Hipster
>    development on the SPARC platform.
> 
>    Great job! However, how does it help if there are no up-to-date SPARC
>    illumos bits available? The plan was to get minimal illumos up and
>    running, so we could self-host Jenkins on SPARC. What happened with
>    this? Instead of SPARC people working together, we get multiple SPARC
>    initiatives with no major milestone achieved anywhere.

That's what these proposals are intended to provide: an operating
system that you can use to construct a build system for Hipster on
SPARC.  It will take a few iterations, but it will be done.

>    I propose, first of all, to create a Hipster ISO.  It won't be
>    current, but it will be a much better base for further development.
>    With this as a base, I and other developers will be able to build many
>    more oi-userland packages.
> 
>    You can build the ISO yourself and share it. I will be able to host
>    undet contrib/ section on DLC and mirror it worldwide.

That'll be fine.  One of the other SPARC developers may do this part.
I'm only using myself as an example.

>    I also propose to create a SPARC package repository to go along with
>    the ISO.  Any SPARC developer will be able to contribute to this
>    repository.  I haven't built illumos-gate, but perhaps other
>    developers have already done this, and can contribute packages.  If
>    not, I can do it.
> 
>    With no build host, no build platform we are not able to self-host
>    SPARC Jenkins and cannot do builds. Setting up a repository and blindly
>    accepting built packages from people is not a very good approach from
>    security point of view and I wouldn't recommend it. With the current
>    setup, we are getting reviews from people and are able to spot
>    potentionaly suspicious things at least.

I thought you already had a SPARC build host.  I thought that what
you were missing was an operating system to run on it.  That's what
this project aims to provide.  As for security, there are only three
SPARC developers, as far as I know.  You should be able to trust us.
We trust you.  The packages are built from the same source.  It's the
source that gets the reviews.

>    Distribution constructor files for hipster are available at
> 
>    [2]https://hipster.openindiana.org/distro_const/, how to build ISOs can
>    be found on the wiki.

Thanks.  I'll review that information as soon as I can.

>    Why not provide with the illlumos SPARC first and then go for
>    oi-userland? We tried to put you, SPARC guys, in touch and create a
>    joint effort for SPARC version of OpenIndiana, so we could release a
>    reasonsble and instead we got fragmentation again. I don't think a lot
>    can be achieved without SPARC build host, build platform and people
>    willing to maintain SPARC version.

Isn't illumos just part of an operating system?  We, the SPARC
developers, can each build illumos-gate.  Some of us have already done
that.  That's the easy part.  But, we also need some oi-userland
packages to make a complete operating system, even just for the text
ISO.  That build takes me several months.  Fortunately, we each can
build and contribute oi-userland packages.  I'd call that cooperation.
I don't know of any other way to have a joint effort.


-- 
-Gary Mills-		-refurb-		-Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada-