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Hello! |
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First: If betagarden were a normal overlay, I would not be writing about |
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it here. |
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If you're in a hurry just skip the introduction and jump down to section |
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"Betagarden overlay". |
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Introduction |
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============ |
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The betagarden overlay has been around for a while. I always wanted to |
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write about its purpose and invite you to collaboration but I haven't |
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got to it before. |
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|
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I understand betagarden as a third place supplementing the Gentoo main |
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tree (sometimes known as "gentoo-x86" or "portage") and the special |
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overlay of Project Sunrise [1]. It fills a gap that these other two |
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repositories leave open. Let's have a look: |
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|
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|
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Gentoo Main tree |
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---------------- |
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- Post-publishing review |
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- Territorial write access: Gentoo Developers (only) |
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- Full write access: Gentoo QA maybe? |
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- High quality standards |
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|
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sunrise overlay |
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--------------- |
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- Pre-publishing review |
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- Reduced write access: Anyone passing a simple test [2] |
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- Full write access: Project Sunrise developers (only) |
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- High quality standards |
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|
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|
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From these lists a few things can be observed: |
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|
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1. Both trees require high quality from ebuilds. This includes |
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- Full integration with Gentoo (menu entries, init scripts, etc.) |
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- Cleaning the ebuild |
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- Support for LDFLAGS |
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- ... |
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|
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2. Gentoo developers who are not fully committed to sunrise |
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do not have full write access to it |
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|
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--> Wouldn't it be nice to have a place where polishing is optional |
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(as long as the ebuilds are still safe) with more liberal write |
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access? |
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|
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But there's another group of repositories that I would also like to have |
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a look at: |
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|
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|
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Gentoo developer overlays |
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------------------------- |
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When you go to <http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/> you see them |
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instantly - most Gentoo devs have one: |
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|
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dev/aballier.git Developer overlay Alexis Ballier |
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dev/alexxy.git Developer overlay Alexey Shvetsov |
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dev/anarchy.git Developer overlay Jory Pratt |
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dev/angelos.git Developer overlay Christoph Mende |
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[..] |
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|
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Many of these overlays currently combine two groups of ebuilds: |
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- Stuff useful to themselves, only |
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- Stuff useful to a wider audience |
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(that they didn't feel like adding to the Gentoo main tree) |
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With such a mix it often makes no sense for somebody else to keep that |
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overlay installed over time. |
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|
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--> Wouldn't it be nice to have the stuff useful to others in a more |
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central place (and reduce your developer to stuff that basically is |
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only interesting to you)? |
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|
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Hollow and I (sping) have been trying to do that with our overlays: |
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moving stuff useful to others over to betagarden, a shared overlay. |
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|
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|
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Betagarden overlay |
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================== |
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So now that I have shared my view on the Gentoo main tree, the sunrise |
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overlay and developer overlays let me summarize how betagarden fits in: |
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|
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- Full write access to all Gentoo Developers |
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That means more freedom than in the main tree or sunrise. |
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|
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- Reduced (but essential) quality standards |
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(hence the "beta" in "betagarden") |
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- Keeping really useful stuff off the developer overlays |
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|
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|
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How to join |
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----------- |
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All devs have write access to betagarden already. |
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|
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1. Clone git+ssh://git@×××××××××××××××××××.org/proj/betagarden.git |
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|
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2. Add yourself to the betagarden@g.o alias: |
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# ssh dev.gentoo.org |
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# nano -w /var/mail/alias/misc/betagarden |
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|
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3. Start adding (or moving over existing) ebuilds |
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|
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If you have trouble pushing commits please contact <overlays@g.o>. |
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|
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In bugzilla, you can assign bugs to <betagarden@g.o> by now. |
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|
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Expected criticism |
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------------------ |
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I expect some of you to be worried: does that mean people stop adding |
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quality ebuilds to the Gentoo main tree and move on to betagarden? |
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|
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No. If an ebuild is really important it belongs into the main tree. In |
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that case someone will take the time to ensure high quality standards |
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and move it from betagarden to the main tree. |
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I hope some of you do see something good in this project. |
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Thanks for your interest, |
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Sebastian |
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[1] http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/sunrise |
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[2] http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/sunrise/wiki/HowToCommit#Password |