[OpenIndiana-discuss] A potential new Illumos reference distro candidate: IA32, AMD64, sun4u, sun4v

Tue Dec 18 18:07:15 UTC 2012

R E S P E C T !!

Kind regards, 

The out-side

Op 18 dec. 2012 om 03:22 heeft Martin Bochnig <martin at martux.org> het volgende geschreven:

> Dear Illumos and all OpenSolaris comrades
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry that I wasn't online for 2 months.
> I did not break my promise: In fact I did nothing else but working on
> Illumos' new SVR4 based reference distro for IA32, AMD64 and sun4u as
> well as sun4v, with X11, also on _all_ SPARC platforms.
> 
> 
> As it was the goal to create sort of reference distro, the standards
> needed to be kept high.
> For this reason it didn't take 5 weeks, as originally estimated, but 5 months.
> FULLTIME(!), night and day, no holidays  ...
> 
> In fact I forgot to earn money (just had no minute), for this reason I
> lost my apartment.
> I needed to live 6 weeks in my old year 1988 built Mercedes.
> Therefore I could not go online. I have no clue what has happened here
> on our lists.
> So far I only had time to read some of today's messages.
> 
> I would probably never feel ready to release anything, because
> demand_for_perfection bugs me now and then.
> However, this time I did not just create a non-installable crappy
> LiveDVD as in the past with MartUX.
> 
> Instead I ported distro_const and caiman's text-install and
> gui-install to use SVR4 instead of IPS, for convenience the excellent
> OpenCSW's pkgutil was chosen.
> Not just to get it to function "somehow", but to remove all traces of
> that IPS stuff, while keeping the useful things in, but to match them
> as much as possible with pkgutil  ...
> 
> There would have been 2 fundamental approaches: Easy and tougher.
> The first would be to take all IPS manifests and convert them
> semi-automated to SVR4 prototype/pkginfo/depend files.
> And simply to keep all the new pkg sets and pkg names and dependencies
> just intact.
> This would certainly be nice and interesting. Maybe someone want's to
> do that, too  :)
> However, this would break dependency resolution backwards
> compatibility to all legacy SVR4 packages in existance.
> 
> For this reason, I neglected it.
> 
> The second one was, to reverse-engineer everything back to the old times.
> And that's what I did.
> 
> Not just for Illumos/OSnet, but for ___all___ consolidations.
> Not just to get old pkgdefs to build without failiure (where they are
> available), but also to re-assign more than 15 thousand (!) unassigned
> files to new pkgdefs (this number for Illumos ON alone!!!)
> Also it was necessary to take older G11N checkouts (just as one
> example), because we need the good old /usr/openwin
> internationalization stuff as well, for OpenXsun.
> 
> OpenXsun's port itself took another 3 weeks.
> And also the Illumos kernel needed to
> It is an endless endless endless list.
> And basicly one never gets 100% finished (depending on how high your
> standards of perfection are).
> However, originally I promised to come back to you on October 18th.
> Today is December 18th. Probablybout time to make a short pre-announcement.
> 
> 
> Current Status:
> 
> 0.) Illumos/Nevada built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged: YES
> 
> 1.) Caiman Sliminstall: distro_const: (always Python based) ported to
> SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged into
> SVR4: YES
>                                   text-install (Python version):
>       ported to SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully
> packaged into SVR4: YES
>                                   gui-install  (C version)
>          ported to SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES,
> Fully packaged into SVR4: YES
>                                  (the rest of Caiman under way, but
> stopped due to the other major TODO's)
> 
> 2.) X11-NV (Xorg): built for x86 and SPARC: YES,  Fully packaged into SVR4: YES
> 
> 3.) openXsun: ported to SPARC-Illumos: YES, Fully packaged into SVR4: YES
> 
> 4.) oi-build/illumos-build/sfw: built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully
> packaged into SVR4: YES
> 
> 5.) g11n including SUNWxsun-keytables for SPARC, plus messages and
> inputmethod: built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged into SVR4:
> YES
> 
> 5.) JDS: 80% built for SPARC, 95% built for x86, 100% fully packaged
> into SVR4: YES
> 
> 6.) Hacked pkgutil to finally support SUNW core packages (that are
> split into different architecture versions, yet all have the samae
> package names in their pkginfo files (without their arch specific
> suffix!): YES.
> As a result, the patched version of pkgutil can be used to install the
> entire new OS, yet still supports installing OpenCSW and Blastwave
> packages, if you just add a mirror line! You can tweak the order of
> preference at which, by simply changing (or commenting in/out) mirror
> lines.
> Plus: The mirror can also be a simple locally available filesystem
> directory. No httpd needs to be running, and it doesn't matter on what
> fs type these directories reside.
> 
> As time pressure forces me to release something, although I'm not
> entirely ready (still missing dependencies, that I still installed
> from the old Solaris DVD for internal testing (but which aren'r
> re-distributable).
> 
> I can create a few dirty fake packages to work around this problem for now.
> Because I don't really want to use pkgutil's --nodeps option. And to
> exclude specific packages doesn't work right now.
> Need to look, why.
> 
> As said, the last few inches still need to be completed.
> But I do understand that you want to see some proof to play with.
> The text_install iso's do get released on holy eve, December 24th.
> As does the complete openXsun port src.
> All the other sources will get 100% released, too. But there is still
> a ton of temporary intermediate files in them.
> And I so far never cared about adding me or the new project's name to
> the CDDL headers (e.g. as Nexenta uses to do). Need to aks a few folks
> about that.
> All that needs to get polished, and it will.
> 
> 
> Project name: You will enjoy it :)
> It is not intended to be "my" distro.
> It is neither MartUX, nor and other personified variant.
> But as I cannot register the new domain without credit card (with some
> minimal balance ...), I'm not sure if the name should be spoken out
> already.
> 
> OURdistro!!!!! That is the vision.
> In 6 days you can test the first installable text-install iso's for
> SPARC and x86.
> The gui-install version that boots into JDS follows a few days later.
> As do the sources (except for openXsun, which you get on the first
> day, December 24th)
> 
> Our distro, our project, our way of life  :)
> 
> 
> CREDITS: I thank my family and my wife, mother, grandmother for all
> the unbelievable support and financial help and understanding.
> Thanks go also to Al Hopper, who always helped me, did all the hosting
> work and donated 200$ in 2009.
> Thanks also to Volker Brandt, who borrowed me 200EUR 2 months ago
> (Volker: You will get them back, somehow, promised ...)
> Also to Brian Gupta, who donated 3000$ in 2008 and rescued my life.
> Also to Ken Mays, who created the nice Wiki page for us, and helped
> forwarding a V490 cpu board to me, from overseas.
> 
> kind regards, and till December 24th!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> %martin bochnig
>  http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/MartUX_OpenIndiana+oi_151a+SPARC+LiveDVD
>    http://www.youtube.com/user/MartUXopensolaris
>      http://www.facebook.com/pages/MartUX_SPARC-OpenIndiana/357912020962940
>        https://twitter.com/MartinBochnig
> 
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