Releasing Slink (was Re: Please add new version of Release-Notes)

[Steve McIntyre <stevem@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Johnie Ingram wrote:

>"Adam" == Adam Di Carlo <aph@debian.org> writes:
>
>Steve> If we have another week, then I'd say pull the images for now
>Steve> while we re-think things.
>
>Adam> Why wait?  I'm a little nervous by how little testing the CDs
>Adam> have gotten compared to hamm.  I know you guys have done a great
>Adam> job but my sense was that with phil's efforts for slink, the

If we leave the images around now, people like CD vendors will end up
using them by mistake, and then we end up with inconsistent stuff out
there. And there has been a lot of testing, just not so much in the way of
testing "official" images as last time.

>I'm going to set up a US mirror of the images again, so that should
>provide more testers for this final week.

Cheers.

>Incidentially I can't build the images here -- I get 2 "critical
>errors" that pppconfig and alsa-modules (iirc) depend on whiptail
>which is on disc #2.

OK, I'm checking into this.

[ Not aimed at netgod, but you're here... :-) ]

The slink release has been a mess, culminating in a last-minute "sorry, we
missed it again" announcement. If we're going to release properly next
Tuesday at 00:00 GMT, then we need a schedule like the following:

1. Fixes needed for each set allowed in Tue, Wed, Thu and then _no more
   uploads_ for any reason. At all. None.

2. Starting _now_ we have people building CD images for each platform.
   These will need to be re-done again later as uploads are made, but we
   need feedback _now_ if there are any missing packages or other CD image
   problems.

3. On Friday final images are made for each of the release architectures.
   I can do i386 and source, we need volunteers for m68k, alpha and sparc. 
   Let us know ASAP if you can help. Steve, you willing to do sparc still?
   In theory, one person could do all of them, but in practice this just
   does not work. And these need to be sanity checked before we pronounce
   them ready to go. 

4. The 4 image maintainers(?) mail me Friday/Saturday to report progress,
   let me know when we have images ready to go. At that point I get them
   onto cdimage.debian.org so they can be mirrored worldwide ready for the
   end of Monday - this takes a _long_ time for ~7GB of image files.

5. At 00:00 GMT on Tuesday the 9th March we announce release to the world;
   images are already on mirrors ready to be downloaded and those of us
   selling CDs will have copies ready to go in the mail.

Comments? We _can_ do this, but we need to be organised. I'll be sending
out a separate mail later listing the problems I've seen us have this
release, and ways that can we can improve for in future. The key thing
here will be to keep producing the install/release stuff all the way
through potato, and not just in the last couple of weeks...

Talk to me...
-- 
Steve McIntyre, Allstor Software         smcintyr@allstor-sw.co.uk
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"Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky,                 
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