Re: Testing d-i for stable-p-u

[Cyril Brulebois]

Hi,

Steven Chamberlain  (2015-10-05):
> Does anyone test d-i for stable-proposed-updates?  If so, how?
> It seems rather difficult currently.

Around p-u time, when d-i's been built (uploaded or binNMUd) against p-u.

> You could build the d-i jessie branch from Git, or get release-candidate
> stable-p-u images from
> http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie-proposed-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/
> 
> but choose-mirror will default to installing jessie.  To override it,
> you may need to use preseed/early_command or execute in a shell:
> 
> sed -i 's/$/-proposed-updates/' /etc/default-release
> 
> If you don't do that, the installer may fetch some of its udebs from
> stable, rather than newer ones in stable-p-u.  (Or otherwise you could
> build a custom d-i image having all the latest udebs from stable-p-u,
> but I've become tired of that).

Depending on particular changes I'd like to check (e.g. grub-installer),
I indeed end up building an image with debian-cd.

> Next, it would be nice to test that the base system in stable-p-u is
> still installable.  d-i's debootstrap can't seem to do this as it
> doesn't recognise "-proposed-updates" suites, so would need a patch to
> add those.  I tried that but ran into some other issue next.

You've mentioned this in your follow-up mail, which I'm quoting to reply
directly in a single mail:
> Oops, of course it doesn't make sense to do that.  stable-p-u contains
> the updated packages and not the whole archive.
> 
> I can't think of an obvious way to make anna (udeb fetcher) and
> d-i debootstrap use stable-p-u in addition to stable.

You're missing net-retriever in this picture. You might find the
following somewhat helpful:
  https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2014/01/msg00026.html

BTW, back to the original topic: I don't expect the base system to
become uninstallable over night in p-u. We have release managers and
debian-boot@ (well me) looking over changes affecting the installation
process in stable, and I don't recall many booboos in this area.

(That said, yes, testing more is better than testing less.)

Mraw,
KiBi.


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Re: Testing d-i for stable-p-u

[Steven Chamberlain]

Steven Chamberlain wrote:
> Next, it would be nice to test that the base system in stable-p-u is
> still installable.  d-i's debootstrap can't seem to do this as it
> doesn't recognise "-proposed-updates" suites, so would need a patch to
> add those.  I tried that but ran into some other issue next.

Oops, of course it doesn't make sense to do that.  stable-p-u contains
the updated packages and not the whole archive.

I can't think of an obvious way to make anna (udeb fetcher) and
d-i debootstrap use stable-p-u in addition to stable.

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
ste...@pyro.eu.org


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Testing d-i for stable-p-u

[Steven Chamberlain]

Hi!

Does anyone test d-i for stable-proposed-updates?  If so, how?
It seems rather difficult currently.

You could build the d-i jessie branch from Git, or get release-candidate
stable-p-u images from
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie-proposed-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/

but choose-mirror will default to installing jessie.  To override it,
you may need to use preseed/early_command or execute in a shell:

sed -i 's/$/-proposed-updates/' /etc/default-release

If you don't do that, the installer may fetch some of its udebs from
stable, rather than newer ones in stable-p-u.  (Or otherwise you could
build a custom d-i image having all the latest udebs from stable-p-u,
but I've become tired of that).

Next, it would be nice to test that the base system in stable-p-u is
still installable.  d-i's debootstrap can't seem to do this as it
doesn't recognise "-proposed-updates" suites, so would need a patch to
add those.  I tried that but ran into some other issue next.

Where I'm going with this is, that jenkins.debian.net does great QA of
the installer and base system from stable.  But doing regular c-i tests
of stable isn't as interesting, as being able to find bugs *before* they
are introduced in a point release.

Thanks!
Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
ste...@pyro.eu.org


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Re: Testing d-i for stable-p-u

[Steven Chamberlain]

Hi,

Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Depending on particular changes I'd like to check (e.g. grub-installer),
> I indeed end up building an image with debian-cd.

I think this is what I must do.  It just feels a bit excessive for
recreational testing, or even within a Jenkins job.

Jenkins also tests PXE netboot installs, and I see no easy way to
test udebs from stable-p-u in that context.

> You're missing net-retriever in this picture. You might find the
> following somewhat helpful:
>   https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2014/01/msg00026.html

Yes, there are some similarities with that use-case.

I already tried changing /etc/udebs-source, but that either gives me
stable's udebs, or an incomplete set of udebs from stable-p-u, but not
both.  I could maybe try to extend net-retriever.

debootstrap can just install stable, and dist-upgrade to stable-p-u
later, and that's good enough to do some basic testing.

Thanks a lot!
Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
ste...@pyro.eu.org


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