25 Jul
2019
25 Jul
'19
6:48 p.m.
On Thursday 25 of July 2019 17:13:23 Mike Bird wrote:
TDE Devs,
I hesitate to send this to a do-ocracy when I don't have the time
to do it myself but I think this warrants a ping.
I rate myself as a software engineer with an excellent track record
in (proprietary) database managers, AI, and systems software. I've
designed software, lead software teams, and picked up other's failing
projects and literally worked and slept in my office to ship on time.
But I would never have thought that what Tim did was possible. The
solo fork and improvement of TDE was a massive undertaking in which
Tim succeeded brilliantly. Whether or not Tim ever touches TDE again
I have an enormous respect for his courage, talent, and achievement.
But now others have taken up the mantle.
The original TDE infrastructure has been broken in various ways
for a long time. The stable mirrors have been unable to update
for eight months. The trinitydesktop.org domain expires in March
and there is no guarantee that the original TDE infrastucture will
continue to stumble along even that long.
TDE 14.0.7 is currently in PSB. Waiting for 14.0.8 might be too
late. I would like to see TDE 14.0.7, either when it goes stable
or soon thereafter, on community-managed infrastructure.
--Mike
Hi all,
I will try to summarize information on what resources we have now, what is
the current status and what are the plans that we have. Although I will
try to be brief, the mail will be a bit long...
1. Primary site
Here are a number of services that are mostly on shared machines where only
Tim can manage it and cannot give access to other admins.
+ web server
+ mailing lists
+ wiki
+ bugzilla
+ git repositories - SCM, CGIT
+ automated scripts for master branch
+ crashreports store
+ patchwork
+ quickbuild
+ archive for mirrors
2. VPS donated by vpsFree.org
This VPS initially provided the mirror function for the GIT repositories
and at the same time has the role of a highly optimized primary redirector
for accessing the package archive.
Currently, TDE Gitea Workspace (TGW) and TDE Weblate Translation Workspace
(TWTW) are hosted on this VPS. As a result, VPS is now the main place
where developers and other contributors work. This allows us to work on
development independently on the primary site. Git repositories is now not
just a mirror, but is bi-directionally synchronized with the primary site.
Another thing is that a Preliminary Stable Builds (PSB) repository has
existed for a long time and later a Preliminary Testing Builds (PTB)
repository was created. These Debian / Devuan / Raspbian / Ubuntu
repositories provide preliminery packages for stable branch as well as
packages for master branch => equivalent of nightly-builds. These packages
are built on builders I have in my management, completely independent of
QuickBuild. These repositories are now provided primarily on this VPS.
For this VPS we don't have to worry about hardware => it provides
vpsFree.org. To manage system on VPS and the services we have here, it's
me and Michele who can manage it. And here is no problem to add other
administrators.
+ git repositories - CGIT
+ TGW - a tool for developers collaboration and manage issues
+ TWTW - a tool to work on translations
+ automated scripts for all branches
+ primary redirector to access the archive
3. Dedicated TDE Box donated by Integricloud
Integricloud, a company associated with Tim, has provided us a dedicated
hardward box on the POWER9 platform. This is a machine with very good
performance. Because it's dedicated hardware, Tim, I and Michele can
manage the virtual machines and services on this box. And here is no
problem to add other administrators.
Here is the plan that services from the primary site will be migrated to
the virtual machines on this box. We are currently preparing virtual
machines on this box. However, for the migration plan and migration work
we will again need participation from Tim, who has been busy for a long
time. And unfortunately for some time again is not contact with him.
4. Plans for the future
Because problems on the primary site combined with Tim's unavailability are
not here for the first time, we have been working for a long time to setup
alternative services to minimize dependence on the primary site. Currently
we are ready to be independent on the primary site for services:
+ web server
+ mailing lists
+ git repositories - CGIT, TGW, TWTW
+ automated scripts for all branches
+ repository and builders - PSB, PTB
+ archive for mirrors - reorganized structure, cleaning done, added missing
things, for example source tarballs for R14.0.6 are here
Thanks to the TDE box donated by Integricloud and VPS donated by
vpsFree.org, we currently have good resources to provide services
availability. What needs to be solved is to prepare a migration plan and
then migrate the services. I propose that we can gradually discuss
individual services to be migrated here and prepare a migration plan.
Cheers
--
Slávek