Re: Debian needs more buildds. It has offers. They aren't being accepted.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 01:58:11AM +0000, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote:
> > 10 machines - one fail -> 10% of CPU time fails
> > 1 machine - one fail -> 100% of CPU time fails
> Sure, I know that; please see what I wrote about "redundancy" in the
> case of ARM. However, adding more machines infinitely is not the
> great panacea either since certain downsides are associated with
> adding more machines. It created more load for ftp-master, and (more
> importantly) is a bigger potential for security attacks; etc.
And adding more machines means a multiple of needed RAM, disks, hosting
facilities, ...
That's why I prefer "fast" 060 machines over slower Macs for m68k, even when
the Amigas are more expensive, but they can handle more workload.
> However, as I wrote in my previous mail, we are working on getting
> more ARM, mips and mipsel hardware, either to be used as buildd
So, I will then add a note on the appropriate arch pages on buildd.net.
Please keep me informed then...
> directly or to have as fallback in case it's needed. We don't try to
> pile that hardware up for fun, but to make sure we have a certain
> amount of redundancy and some fallback options; plus enough machines
> for various porting work.
Well, there could have been enough redundancy around already... (-8
> > qt-x11-free, but nothing happened. *This* is some sort of
> > unacceptable.
> Yeah, I was quite frustrated with this as well. Oh well, there are
> just many different people in Debian and we have to try a way to work
> together. Some people are very communicative while others just do
> their work -- and Ryan generally does his work. I remember a recent
> request on debian-mips to have a package recompiled, and while Ryan
> did not respond to the mail, looking at incoming.d.o showed that he
> had acted upon the request. It would have been nice to also get a
> short mail saying so, but then again this would take away time from
> his work. Some developers do take that time to respond and others
> don't.
Hmmm, how much time takes it to answer a mail for a request, say to rebuild
a package? 10 secs? 15? Press reply, delete some unneeded quoting lines,
write "done", send the mail...
Sorry, but I'm not really willing to accept this argument any longer that
doing work is better than talking about it. Instead communicating with
others *is* part of the job that have to be done. And again, if people are
to loaded with work, so they can't communicate, then they need some
assistance, either for the work or for the communication with others.
> In the case of qt-x11-free, I'm not sure exactly what the
> problem was.
How about asking Ryan then? ;))
> However, simply uploading a totally untested package
> as Goswin did isn't ideal either (especially since someone else had
> built the package already and asked for testers).
Basically that's what buildds are doing. And if you follow the build steps
like a buildd (clean chroot, sbuild, ...) it should be ok.
> > Hmmm, there was an offer to one of my subscribed Irix Mailing lists for some
> > SGI machines to give away for free on a certain day in Oberhausen (Germany).
> Some mips people in Germany are looking for new hardware (in
> particular Karsten who only has some old SGI), so please forward that
> posting to debian-mips.
Yeah, I might forward the mail to Karsten. He's near enough to pick up the
machines. Hey, there's even a Challenge XL... 8-}
> > > (In the meantime, to make the problem worse, casals.d.o needs a new
> > > kernel and cannot be used as buildd in the meantime. This should
> > > hopefully be fixed soon, though.)
> > Erm, why can't a machine be used as a buildd *and* for DDs to port/debug
> > their packages?
> I didn't say it cannot. It cannot be used as buildd at the moment
> because the kernel is too old. libc on mips needs a current kernel or
> something like that.
Well, you made the impression to me of setting up several machines either as
a buildd *or* a public machine.
> > > In summary, the currently problematic architectures are being
> > > worked on.
> > But it seems as only Ryan, James and you are know of that. For all
> > others it seems as nothing would happen. It would nice to have those
> > information better communicated to other people. If someone give me
> Well, James is responsible for ARM, Ryan for mips, so obviously they
> know. I did mention on -mips that one mipsel buildd was down, and the
> ARM boards are a recent donation.
I think, when a buildd dies or the arch has some other serious problems, the
DDs need to be informed about that. Of course announcing this on the users
list is great, but most DDs don't read all ports lists. ;)
But many of the DDs are looking for information on buildd.net and that's the
reason why there's a buildd status indicator there.
And yes, there was the idea back then to have these pages on buildd.d.o but
Ryan refused any collaboration ("all needed information is already there."),
so I think it's now better and safer to host these pages outside of
buildd.d.o. Bad thing, eh? :-/
> > But then again, it doesn't make much sense to setup new buildds when
> > you have to wait some weeks until they can get w-b access.
> You mentioned that one m68k buildd got access within a day or so, so
> obviously it cannot be that bad.
Yes, that's why there is talk about the cabal again... if someone co-works
with Goswin, it seems as if he gets instantly ignored by "someone else".
> I mentioned before that I don't see
> a problem with the m68k machines you're currently building to get
> access to w-b either. As to those which haven't been added yet,
> perhaps you should just get the hint and use them for something else
> (such as d-i).
See one of Goswins Mails for this. Currently we need his A4000 as a buildd.
Doing this job manually gives extra workload on currently 3 people: Goswin,
Wouter and Stephen Marenka.
Adding A4000 to the w-b access will just give a little, one time workload
for just one person.
What, do you think, is better for the project?
> > I would wish that we can establish a way to interact with each other
> > in a productive way for the sake of the project. Maybe a new mailing
> > list for all buildd admins (and related persons such as buildd
> > hosters) would be nice
> I certainly think such a mailing list would be a good idea.
So, can you probably ask the listmasters to add a new list like
buildd-admin@l.d.o then?
--
Ciao... //
Ingo \X/
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