Re: squeeze and the future of the alpha port, redux
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 10:01:52PM +1300, Michael Cree wrote:
> Steve Langasek wrote:
>> Also unsurprisingly (to me, given my observations that had led to the post
>> in the first place), no one else has yet stepped up to be an alpha porter
>> for squeeze.
> What is involved in this job?
Collectively, the porters are responsible for:
- keeping the arch-specific bootloader (aboot) in working order
- maintaining the arch-specific installer components
- maintaining the architecture's kernel build
- fixing the toolchain (in collaboration with upstream) if it breaks
- making sure packages are generally building sanely, and fixing
architecture-related build failures
(<https://buildd.debian.org/~luk/status/architecture.php?a=alpha>,
<https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph2-quarter-big.png>)
- Working on architecture-specific bugs in packages (e.g.,
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-alpha@lists.debian.org>)
> What is the time commitment?
Varies widely. I think I averaged less than 3 hours a week (possibly much
less) through the etch cycle and the beginning of the lenny cycle.
> What is the needed experience?
While folks who aren't DDs won't be turned away from helping, in practice
there needs to be a certain critical mass of DDs working on a port since
it's important to be able to do uploads directly when needed.
Otherwise, reviewing the debian-alpha list archives over the past few years
probably gives as good an indication as any of the kind of bugs that need to
be dealt with.
>> But in the absence of some demonstration of committment in the next
>> couple of weeks, on March 7 I'll plan to ask the ftp team and the release
>> team to drop alpha from the archive for testing and unstable.
> Ouch! Just when the patches to provide PCI resource files under sysfs
> on Alpha have materialised, and I was so looking forward to the new
> xserver propagating through to unstable and testing.
It's not out of the question that this might happen before March. I don't
know that the removal of alpha is going to be instantaneous, either;
furthermore, removing alpha from the archive doesn't preclude building an
unofficial alpha version of squeeze, perhaps of a hand-picked, reduced set
of packages. If people are interested, it's possible something could be
worked out with debian-ports.org.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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