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GLEP: 19
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Title: Gentoo Stable Portage Tree
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Version: $Revision: 1.7 $
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Last-Modified: $Date: 2004/11/02 15:38:58 $
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Author: Kurt Lieber <klieber@gentoo.org>
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Status: Draft
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Type: Standards Track
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Content-Type: text/x-rst
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Created: 26-Jan-2004
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Post-History: 29-Jan-2004 2-Nov-2004 7-Dec-2004
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Abstract
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========
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This GLEP is intended to propose a series of changes to the Portage tree that
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are necessary to facilitate the use of Gentoo in areas where stability and
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predictability are of paramount importance, including servers in enterprise
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environments, mission critical workstations and other such installations.
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The proposed solution involves creating a separate tree in Portage that is
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updated far less often than the regular tree. Outside of periodic updates,
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this tree would only be updated with critical bugfixes and security patches.
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Status
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======
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Currently recruiting people who would be willing to help with this GLEP.
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Motivation
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==========
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Enterprise users typically value stability and a predictable upgrade path
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over having the latest packages or features available to them. Historically,
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Gentoo Linux has been unable to provide such an environment due to the dynamic
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nature of the Portage tree.
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Specification
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=============
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The Gentoo Infrastructure team will need to provide an additional Portage tree
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on our rsync mirroring system. This new tree will house the ebuilds
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associated with the stable tree. It also impacts all Gentoo developers
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responsible for creating and updating ebuilds as they will be expected to
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integrate the tagging of ebuilds for the stable tree into their normal
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development process, both for the quarterly release cycles as well as
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off-cycle bug and security fixes.
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The Gentoo Documentation team will also be affected as they will be
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responsible for updating installation documents to take these new features
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into account.
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Rationale
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=========
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A basic outline of various ways of adding a "stable" tree to Portage was
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discussed in the gentoo managers meeting on 26-Jan-04. Consensus seemed to be
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reached that such a solution was needed and that branching the gentoo-x86
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repository was the appropriate way to accomplish this. The largest area of
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disagreement surrounded how specific ebuilds should be targeted for inclusion
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in the stable tree.
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One suggested solution was a simple branch of the CVS tree and having
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developers work in two separate branches; one for the stable tree and
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another for the traditional tree. However, it was felt this would prove too
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cumbersome in practice.
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Another suggestion was to have a small group of dedicated gentoo-server
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developers responsible for generating the contents of the stable tree, which
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would provide more control and quality assurance over the ebuilds added to the
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stable tree. While this might prove effective for a small number of ebuilds,
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it is quite likely that this model would not scale enough to allow for a large
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number of ebuilds in the stable tree and, over time, the project would become
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resource constrained and unable to meed future deadlines.
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While the original draft of this GLEP called for the creation of a stable
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keyword, we have since discarded that idea in favor of creating a custom
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profile, which will be used to track a subset of packages and versions.
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Implementation
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==============
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This GLEP will create a new set of cascaded profiles (one per release, not to
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exceed two per year) which will contain a subset of packages, including
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versions. This profile will "pin" a Gentoo Linux box to a specific set of
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packages and will only be updated for security updates and, in rare
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circumstances, major bug fixes.
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Because this profile will be cascaded, the option exists for other developers
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to create their own profile, containing a subset of packages not found in the
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"main" stable tree and include those as part of the overall stable profile.
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These cases will be treated on a one-off basis.
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The initial version will be x86 only, though other people will be encouraged
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to provide separate stable profiles for other arches. It is expected that any
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effort to provide a stable tree for any arch or flavor of Gentoo will follow
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the basic outline of this GLEP to ensure consistency for our users.
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In addition to a custom profile, this GLEP will also create a separate rsync
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repository, "gentoo-stable-portage", which will be available on all servers in
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the rsync.gentoo.org rotation. This repository will be *identical* to the
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main gentoo-portage repository except that the --delete flag will be removed
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from the rsync option that populates the tree. This will ensure that users of
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the stable profile will not have to worry about ebuilds for their packages
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disappearing.
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Stable profiles will be maintained on an N - 2 basis. That is to say that we
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will maintain a stable profile for the most current release, plus the previous
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two releases. With the expected release schedule for 2005, this will result
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in each profile being supported for approximately 18 months. Future versions
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of the stable portage tree may seek to increase the life of these profiles.
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Backwards Compatibility
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=======================
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All features proposed here are new additions to existing processes and
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features. There should be no impact on existing features and functionality.
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Copyright
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=========
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This document is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share
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Alike license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0)
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