Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 12 January 2013 19:07, Kevin Fenzi ke...@scrye.com wrote: On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:01:03 + Ian Malone ibmal...@gmail.com wrote: KDE favourites: For a spin (or formula) it makes sense that the favourites should reflect the spin (or formula) focus. The kickstart updates this through /etc/skel/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc and /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys (on the live sytem the installer is a favourite, so these two are slightly different). favourites are like 'what app runs to handle uri's' and such? More simple than that, the KDE menu's first tab has a number of programmes as favourites, a bit like the Gnome3 sidebar. -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 12 January 2013 17:02, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote: Ian Malone wrote: KDE favourites: For a spin (or formula) it makes sense that the favourites should reflect the spin (or formula) focus. The kickstart updates this through /etc/skel/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc and /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys (on the live sytem the installer is a favourite, so these two are slightly different). You can write KDE defaults to /etc/kde (which ships empty by default, we put distrowide defaults into /usr/share/kde-settings/kde- profile/default/share/config/ instead). IIRC, I already pointed this out to one of you when they asked about tweaking KDE settings. That's what's done at the moment. Thought I'd bring it up as I wasn't sure it was the approved (wasn't me, maybe was a private email) or best solution and also, if we did use a formula instead, this is one of the things we'd want to do through ansible. My understanding is it that it's trivial, but I could be wrong. -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi ke...@scrye.com wrote: Greetings. I've whipped up the early ideas of a way to replace (most) spins with something that is more generic and useful. I have signed up for a fudcon session to brainstorm on this idea and see if it can be beaten into a plan/schedule/feature, or if it's not going to work for whatever reason. I have a very brainstormy/draft wiki page outlining the idea at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas The short version: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. Want a electionics lab setup? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a LAMP stack? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a openstack demo cluster? ditto. Want a graphics designer workstation? ditto. Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Looking at the distribution of even the desktop spins it jumps out at me that only the KDE spin seems to exceed 100 downloads while we distribute all of them in the thousands via pressed multi-desktop media which we also make available to users for download or transfer to USB as a group. This indirect distribution of desktop spins is likely close to two orders of magnitude larger than the direct download distribution. From a marketing perspective I think the multi-desktop media form of distribution achieves the desired ends even in the absence of pushing individual desktop spins to all the mirrors. Which makes me wonder if we should consider having a pre-desktop base with formulas for the desktops as well? Even if the answer to that is no I can imagine lots of potential uses for which the existence of a desktop isn't necessary or even desirable. John -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
Ian Malone wrote: KDE favourites: For a spin (or formula) it makes sense that the favourites should reflect the spin (or formula) focus. The kickstart updates this through /etc/skel/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc and /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys (on the live sytem the installer is a favourite, so these two are slightly different). You can write KDE defaults to /etc/kde (which ships empty by default, we put distrowide defaults into /usr/share/kde-settings/kde- profile/default/share/config/ instead). IIRC, I already pointed this out to one of you when they asked about tweaking KDE settings. Desktop themeing: Related to KDE favourites above, though of less functional importance. Again this is currently handled by having a package for the spin themes which owns an /etc/skel file that allows us to set the default themes (KDE desktop theme and splash). This is not really a problem that desktop spins have (since by definition they have their own independent themes), but for other spins or formulae being able to tweak the default look slightly gives some sense of individual identity for the spin itself and also a degree of user-hinting about the environment they're using. Likewise, this should be doable through /etc/kde. Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:01:03 + Ian Malone ibmal...@gmail.com wrote: Of course in trying to do that what we were really trying to do was amend the defaults users would get on the installed system. Some of this we were able to achieve through /etc/skel files, but that's a non-scaling and fragile solution as already mentioned. Some was originally attempted by modifying firstboot modules (a no-no that is not in the approved spin). Since we had planned to try and find better solutions with the spins and engineering teams once the release was out and since ansible sounds like it can provide some of them (and since the F18 release is now final - congratulations to everyone who worked hard through /that/), here are the Music-creation/Jam spin quirks for a case study: KDE favourites: For a spin (or formula) it makes sense that the favourites should reflect the spin (or formula) focus. The kickstart updates this through /etc/skel/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc and /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys (on the live sytem the installer is a favourite, so these two are slightly different). favourites are like 'what app runs to handle uri's' and such? Audio group permissions: Needed for Jack real-time, usermod commands are added to /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys so in the live system the liveuser is in 'jackuser' and 'audio'. We can't push this in the installed system at the moment. (This is one of the parts that had been done with the firstboot modules, piggybacking on the add-to-administrator group function. Additionally to modifying files it shouldn't, that simple approach is also not very compatible with translations.) Yeah, a user running a formula could have this done to their user I would think, as long as we don't have guidelines preventing it. Desktop themeing: Related to KDE favourites above, though of less functional importance. Again this is currently handled by having a package for the spin themes which owns an /etc/skel file that allows us to set the default themes (KDE desktop theme and splash). This is not really a problem that desktop spins have (since by definition they have their own independent themes), but for other spins or formulae being able to tweak the default look slightly gives some sense of individual identity for the spin itself and also a degree of user-hinting about the environment they're using. Sure, that could be an optional thing too... 'do you want the themes from ...' From my brief skim of the Formula proposal it looks like it can do all of these. If you can also do a headless/non-interactive setup targetted at liveuser then presumably it could just be run by the kickstart during creation of a livecd/dvd (i.e. so things are already set up in the disk image, you'd then have to run it again during the actual install, but I think it would be an advantage to not have to do this every time you start a live image without persistent storage). Yeah, how it would interact with live creation/install is something to hash out. kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 10 January 2013 23:51, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote: Brendan Jones wrote: The main problem we have with kickstarts at the moment is that there is no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. This is just plain impossible anyway (except for config files in /etc), no matter what you do (i.e. not just with kickstarts). The next update of the package legitimately owning the file will destroy any changes made to the file (except if it was marked %config(noreplace), but files outside of /etc must not be marked %config nor %config(noreplace) according to our packaging guidelines). Of course in trying to do that what we were really trying to do was amend the defaults users would get on the installed system. Some of this we were able to achieve through /etc/skel files, but that's a non-scaling and fragile solution as already mentioned. Some was originally attempted by modifying firstboot modules (a no-no that is not in the approved spin). Since we had planned to try and find better solutions with the spins and engineering teams once the release was out and since ansible sounds like it can provide some of them (and since the F18 release is now final - congratulations to everyone who worked hard through /that/), here are the Music-creation/Jam spin quirks for a case study: KDE favourites: For a spin (or formula) it makes sense that the favourites should reflect the spin (or formula) focus. The kickstart updates this through /etc/skel/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc and /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys (on the live sytem the installer is a favourite, so these two are slightly different). Audio group permissions: Needed for Jack real-time, usermod commands are added to /etc/rc.d/init.d/livesys so in the live system the liveuser is in 'jackuser' and 'audio'. We can't push this in the installed system at the moment. (This is one of the parts that had been done with the firstboot modules, piggybacking on the add-to-administrator group function. Additionally to modifying files it shouldn't, that simple approach is also not very compatible with translations.) Desktop themeing: Related to KDE favourites above, though of less functional importance. Again this is currently handled by having a package for the spin themes which owns an /etc/skel file that allows us to set the default themes (KDE desktop theme and splash). This is not really a problem that desktop spins have (since by definition they have their own independent themes), but for other spins or formulae being able to tweak the default look slightly gives some sense of individual identity for the spin itself and also a degree of user-hinting about the environment they're using. From my brief skim of the Formula proposal it looks like it can do all of these. If you can also do a headless/non-interactive setup targetted at liveuser then presumably it could just be run by the kickstart during creation of a livecd/dvd (i.e. so things are already set up in the disk image, you'd then have to run it again during the actual install, but I think it would be an advantage to not have to do this every time you start a live image without persistent storage). -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
Brendan Jones wrote: The main problem we have with kickstarts at the moment is that there is no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. This is just plain impossible anyway (except for config files in /etc), no matter what you do (i.e. not just with kickstarts). The next update of the package legitimately owning the file will destroy any changes made to the file (except if it was marked %config(noreplace), but files outside of /etc must not be marked %config nor %config(noreplace) according to our packaging guidelines). Kevin Kofler -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/09/2013 12:18 AM, Matthew Miller wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:17:35PM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? Like any software? I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? So you want us in the QA community to go through basically a copy concept of puppets/chefs and QA any Formula that has been submitted there? There are several checks that happen when a spin gets created whilst this idea we would have to download each formula and test it. JBG -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/09/2013 04:34 AM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 19:18:36 -0500 Matthew Miller mat...@fedoraproject.org wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:17:35PM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? Like any software? I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? I'd welcome any QA thoughts/feedback. I think we would probibly have to have guidelines at least somewhat worked out before we could figure out how to test things. We could do something like what we do for packages, ie, a testing collection and promotion to stable only happens with positive tester feedback. We could try and build into the process some kind of automated testing/tooling. (search for forbidden items, runs in a virt that list all files changed and diffs of those for review, etc. I think QA is definitely something to keep in mind when thinking about the rest of the process... In one response against this thread you say This is not exactly what I meant... this would be things you could run/install on any already installed Fedora. It would not have anything to do with creating live isos... it would be just extra things for existing installs. From that response I gather it is something user setup/install after installing Fedora basically you seem to be then just duplicating and or trying to come up with a better app installer then already exists is that the case? JBG -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 9 January 2013 04:10, Brendan Jones brendan.jones...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/08/2013 09:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: Greetings. I've whipped up the early ideas of a way to replace (most) spins with something that is more generic and useful. I have signed up for a fudcon session to brainstorm on this idea and see if it can be beaten into a plan/schedule/feature, or if it's not going to work for whatever reason. I have a very brainstormy/draft wiki page outlining the idea at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas The short version: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. Coming from the Fedora Audio spin here's a few things that we would like to achieve that we can (mostly) from a kickstart: - add default groups for the liveuser and logged in user - add extra kernel boot parameters (threadirqs) - custom desktop themes, favourites, and desktop settings (turning off desktop effects for example) - default autostart apps The main problem we have with kickstarts at the moment is that there is no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. In the future we might like to choose different pulseaudio modules to load, ALSA config based on hardware etc. I don't see how this solution could do this if it were RPM based. If is based as some kind of overlay that alters files owned by other packages post install then there needs to be an obvious indication that this has occurred. I'd expect that whoever writes such a formula would have to get sign off from the owner of the package whose files it modifies. Thanks, I was planning to reply from the Fedora Jam/Audio spin point of view. Looking at Kevin's page this might actually be a way to do some of the configuration work we were trying to do with the spin: Advantages / selling points Better than groups of packages, because you can change config files, set things to start on boot, etc. Allows for interactive querying the user for what they want Down-sides, there'd no longer be a live-cd/dvd as a 'demo' system. You could only try out the formula on an installed system. It looks though like people are already suggesting overlaying a formula somehow to create traditional live images (presumably still with the advantages of being able to tweak configuration). -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 9 January 2013 12:23, Ian Malone ibmal...@gmail.com wrote: Down-sides, there'd no longer be a live-cd/dvd as a 'demo' system. You could only try out the formula on an installed system. It looks though like people are already suggesting overlaying a formula somehow to create traditional live images (presumably still with the advantages of being able to tweak configuration). P.S. that downside also may translate to more difficult testing and development. With spin development I've been able to make a live cd and then run it live or run it live/install it within a VM. With a formula you have to have an already-installed image in a VM and then make the formula available for install within it. (Advantage though, compiling a formula *must* be quicker than rebuilding a live image.) -- imalone http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/09/2013 01:27 PM, Ian Malone wrote: On 9 January 2013 12:23, Ian Malone ibmal...@gmail.com wrote: Down-sides, there'd no longer be a live-cd/dvd as a 'demo' system. You could only try out the formula on an installed system. It looks though like people are already suggesting overlaying a formula somehow to create traditional live images (presumably still with the advantages of being able to tweak configuration). P.S. that downside also may translate to more difficult testing and development. With spin development I've been able to make a live cd and then run it live or run it live/install it within a VM. With a formula you have to have an already-installed image in a VM and then make the formula available for install within it. (Advantage though, compiling a formula *must* be quicker than rebuilding a live image.) Agreed to both your downsides. The goal of the spin was to have as much configured 'out of the box' in a live environment firstly then as the installed user. I can't see this as being a replacement but perhaps it could be used in this context as well (post install). -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
From: Kevin Fenzi ke...@scrye.com Thats not to say perhaps we couldn't think of a clever way to somehow generate images based on them, but it would probibly take some way to take an existing machine and make a live image from it. Not sure how easy that is to do. I think that's quite straightforward, if desired. You merely run ansible/puppet/whatever in the post install of a kickstart used with livecd-creator. The UI for such a thing would merely create the dynamic content to be included within the kickstart and subsequently run livecd-creator. -- John Florian -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 01:15:29PM -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. I think this is great work, and fills a big gap in Fedora as it is. Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Presumably not just desktops, given your examples of openstack. I'd also like to works in kickstart postinstall as a basic feature. That means a non-interactive mode. One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. -- Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁ mat...@fedoraproject.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 05:15:02AM +0100, Brendan Jones wrote: no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. In the future we might like to choose different pulseaudio modules to load, ALSA config based on hardware etc. I don't This is probably not a good example as we could drop such config files in /etc/skel That depends on those files getting copied into newly-created users' home directories, which is not really ideal. -- Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁ mat...@fedoraproject.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 07:36:06AM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? So you want us in the QA community to go through basically a copy concept of puppets/chefs and QA any Formula that has been submitted there? I didn't say what I want; I asked a question. Formulas would need rules akin to the RPM packaging guidelines and review process. QA would certainly be an important part of that, although it doesn't necessarily need to place more demand on the existing QE team. There are several checks that happen when a spin gets created whilst this idea we would have to download each formula and test it. There's absolutely no reason that some rudimentarly testing of formulas couldn't happen automatically. -- Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁ mat...@fedoraproject.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 08:20:58AM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: From that response I gather it is something user setup/install after installing Fedora basically you seem to be then just duplicating and or trying to come up with a better app installer then already exists is that the case? It's not a better app installer. It's a complementary function. The installer puts software onto your system. A formula configures it in the way you want for a function you want. -- Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁ mat...@fedoraproject.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
Le mercredi 09 janvier 2013 à 09:24 -0500, Matthew Miller a écrit : On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 07:36:06AM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? So you want us in the QA community to go through basically a copy concept of puppets/chefs and QA any Formula that has been submitted there? I didn't say what I want; I asked a question. Formulas would need rules akin to the RPM packaging guidelines and review process. QA would certainly be an important part of that, although it doesn't necessarily need to place more demand on the existing QE team. Or we could ask to people who use it to do the Q/A. There are several checks that happen when a spin gets created whilst this idea we would have to download each formula and test it. There's absolutely no reason that some rudimentarly testing of formulas couldn't happen automatically. Since that's yaml, having a schema based on kwalify would be a first test : http://www.kuwata-lab.com/kwalify/ -- Michael Scherer -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 09:18:55 -0500 Matthew Miller mat...@fedoraproject.org wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 01:15:29PM -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. I think this is great work, and fills a big gap in Fedora as it is. Cool. Hopefully enough folks find it interesting to work on. :) Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Presumably not just desktops, given your examples of openstack. I'd also like to works in kickstart postinstall as a basic feature. That means a non-interactive mode. Yeah, I am on the fence about that. I guess we could say there's interactive support, but you can run --noninteractive and get some kind of default/no optional features ? Something to hash out for sure. One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 08:59:35 -0500 john.flor...@dart.biz wrote: From: Kevin Fenzi ke...@scrye.com Thats not to say perhaps we couldn't think of a clever way to somehow generate images based on them, but it would probibly take some way to take an existing machine and make a live image from it. Not sure how easy that is to do. I think that's quite straightforward, if desired. You merely run ansible/puppet/whatever in the post install of a kickstart used with livecd-creator. The UI for such a thing would merely create the dynamic content to be included within the kickstart and subsequently run livecd-creator. Could work. That would still be more hassle for current spin consumers if they really need a read only bootable media. On the other hand they would be able to make their own easier... kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, 9 Jan 2013, Kevin Fenzi wrote: One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) Let me make an argument against rpms here. Ansible doesn't require anything on the local system to run a playbook. That's one of its virtues. For a user if we just use a git repo then the user doesn't have to modify their system in order to use the tools to change their system. There is a certain amount of elegance in that not to mention just not being annoying. -sv -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/09/2013 12:26 PM, Seth Vidal wrote: On Wed, 9 Jan 2013, Kevin Fenzi wrote: One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) Let me make an argument against rpms here. Ansible doesn't require anything on the local system to run a playbook. That's one of its virtues. For a user if we just use a git repo then the user doesn't have to modify their system in order to use the tools to change their system. There is a certain amount of elegance in that not to mention just not being annoying. It also allows a user to take a recipe, fork, modify, improve etc and test it without necessarily knowing anything about rpm... or being a packager in the packager group etc. Having a fedora account etc... -- Nathanael d. Noblet t 403.875.4613 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:50:31 +0100 Brendan Jones brendan.jones...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/09/2013 01:27 PM, Ian Malone wrote: On 9 January 2013 12:23, Ian Malone ibmal...@gmail.com wrote: Down-sides, there'd no longer be a live-cd/dvd as a 'demo' system. You could only try out the formula on an installed system. It looks though like people are already suggesting overlaying a formula somehow to create traditional live images (presumably still with the advantages of being able to tweak configuration). Yeah, there would be another step, but in this step you could gain some interactivity and more features. ie: live spin case: - download spin - burn/transfer to media - boot and use formula case: - download whatever desktop the user likes. - burn/transfer to media - boot - run formula frontend, click 'fedora jams' - answer some questions, get offered some tutorials or other info. - use So, there are more steps (downside), but you get to offer them a better experience (at least potentially). P.S. that downside also may translate to more difficult testing and development. With spin development I've been able to make a live cd and then run it live or run it live/install it within a VM. With a formula you have to have an already-installed image in a VM and then make the formula available for install within it. (Advantage though, compiling a formula *must* be quicker than rebuilding a live image.) Sure, you can make a stock vm and clone it each time for testing too. Also, btrfs/lvm snapshots might help. Agreed to both your downsides. The goal of the spin was to have as much configured 'out of the box' in a live environment firstly then as the installed user. I can't see this as being a replacement but perhaps it could be used in this context as well (post install). Yeah, it was pointed out to me that there are still some other spins use cases that I am not sure we can replace here. Namely: - Security lab - one of the uses is to boot ro on a possibly compromised machine and inspect it. You don't want a real install for that. - Other spins - Some people might be (does anyone know if they do?) using live media in labs where they don't want to touch the installs on the machines, but use just one for a class or session. ie, boot 15 machines up with design-suite, do a class on gimp, pull them and reboot machines in whatever else they had on them. kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
Seth Vidal (skvi...@fedoraproject.org) said: One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) Let me make an argument against rpms here. Ansible doesn't require anything on the local system to run a playbook. That's one of its virtues. For a user if we just use a git repo then the user doesn't have to modify their system in order to use the tools to change their system. There is a certain amount of elegance in that not to mention just not being annoying. Well, if we're allowing this to be for end-users as opposed to just managed infrastructure, it would require *something* to be on the local end-user's system, depending on how the playbook is written. (For example, if it uses the 'command' or 'shell' features) That can be mitigated by having requirements on the playbooks that we accept into this repository, of course. Bill -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Wed, 9 Jan 2013, Bill Nottingham wrote: Seth Vidal (skvi...@fedoraproject.org) said: One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) Let me make an argument against rpms here. Ansible doesn't require anything on the local system to run a playbook. That's one of its virtues. For a user if we just use a git repo then the user doesn't have to modify their system in order to use the tools to change their system. There is a certain amount of elegance in that not to mention just not being annoying. Well, if we're allowing this to be for end-users as opposed to just managed infrastructure, it would require *something* to be on the local end-user's system, depending on how the playbook is written. (For example, if it uses the 'command' or 'shell' features) That can be mitigated by having requirements on the playbooks that we accept into this repository, of course. 1. you don't want to use command/shell modules much - mainly b/c they are not idempotent and get run every time barring the presence of the creates=option 2. you are correct that if you are using something not commonly on systems in a command or shell module you're in trouble. However, you can pull those in an early step in the playbook w/o controversy. Playbooks don't execute in random order. They are in a strict, obvious order. does that help? -sv -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Jan 9, 2013 12:32 PM, Nathanael D. Noblet nathan...@gnat.ca wrote: On 01/09/2013 12:26 PM, Seth Vidal wrote: On Wed, 9 Jan 2013, Kevin Fenzi wrote: One of the big questions to answer is distribution. I can see good arguments on the one hand distributing formulas via RPM and on the other having an official Git repository for them. Yep. I am torn here too. rpms get us a lot, but are also inflexable in other ways. :) Let me make an argument against rpms here. Ansible doesn't require anything on the local system to run a playbook. That's one of its virtues. For a user if we just use a git repo then the user doesn't have to modify their system in order to use the tools to change their system. There is a certain amount of elegance in that not to mention just not being annoying. It also allows a user to take a recipe, fork, modify, improve etc and test it without necessarily knowing anything about rpm... or being a packager in the packager group etc. Having a fedora account etc... -- Nathanael d. Noblet t 403.875.4613 -- I really like this idea. A curated, task oriented system helps inexperienced users get it right and advanced users work more efficiently. The concept is highly marketable. Properly maintained, we could save scores of users from the scourge of outdated, inaccurate, or potentially harmful procedurals that a broad Google search might dig up. With that in mind, I have to disagree with the comments above. Presenting this as a playground for inexperienced users negates the benefit of curation and compounds the very problems I think it should solve. Not that the functionality shouldn't be there, of course, but the presentation should stress quality over extensibility. --Pete -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
From: Kevin Fenzi ke...@scrye.com Greetings. I've whipped up the early ideas of a way to replace (most) spins with something that is more generic and useful. I have signed up for a fudcon session to brainstorm on this idea and see if it can be beaten into a plan/schedule/feature, or if it's not going to work for whatever reason. I have a very brainstormy/draft wiki page outlining the idea at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas The short version: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. Want a electionics lab setup? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a LAMP stack? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a openstack demo cluster? ditto. Want a graphics designer workstation? ditto. Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Of course there's tons of details/questions to work out (many listed on the wiki page, but I'm sure there are more details too). So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? :) kevin Doh! I wish I was going to fudcon. I've yet to get to one and this would be right up my alley. I'm doing something similar with puppet now where I boot a custom Live Fedora spin with stateless Linux features enabled and puppet makes each node conform to some predetermined role. I've been wanting to get some time with ansible because puppet really isn't working very well for this. My situation differs mostly in that I use this approach to maintain hundreds (working towards thousands) of appliance-like nodes. Still, there is much in common once you go beyond just managing packages, but also their run-time state. Do you aim to go that far, or stop just shy of that? I don't think the concept is crazy at all -- I think it's terrific, but I also have no idea how attached the current spin maintainers are to their established methods. -- John Florian -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? JBG -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:17:35PM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? Like any software? I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? -- Matthew Miller ☁☁☁ Fedora Cloud Architect ☁☁☁ mat...@fedoraproject.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
I know that Slax Linux used to have this feature. You could just choose the modules that you want on the website and download a custom live iso with those packages! strikeBut that feature is disabled now, perhaps because/strike they use a new module system now. Ah, here: http://old.slax.org/build.php I'm not sure whether that's just for show or if it still works though. That's what you are thinking, right? On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson johan...@gmail.comwrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? JBG -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.**org/mailman/listinfo/develhttps://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- Best wishes Mahrud http://algorithms.ir/~mahrud/blog/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
update: definitely works. It's pretty neat to have a live usb with the exact programs that you like ready in your pocket! How can you create an iso on the fly that fast?! On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Mahrud S dinovi...@gmail.com wrote: I know that Slax Linux used to have this feature. You could just choose the modules that you want on the website and download a custom live iso with those packages! strikeBut that feature is disabled now, perhaps because/strike they use a new module system now. Ah, here: http://old.slax.org/build.php I'm not sure whether that's just for show or if it still works though. That's what you are thinking, right? On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson johan...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? JBG -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.**org/mailman/listinfo/develhttps://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- Best wishes Mahrud http://algorithms.ir/~mahrud/blog/ -- Best wishes Mahrud http://algorithms.ir/~mahrud/blog/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/08/2013 09:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: Greetings. I've whipped up the early ideas of a way to replace (most) spins with something that is more generic and useful. I have signed up for a fudcon session to brainstorm on this idea and see if it can be beaten into a plan/schedule/feature, or if it's not going to work for whatever reason. I have a very brainstormy/draft wiki page outlining the idea at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas The short version: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. Want a electionics lab setup? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a LAMP stack? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a openstack demo cluster? ditto. Want a graphics designer workstation? ditto. Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Of course there's tons of details/questions to work out (many listed on the wiki page, but I'm sure there are more details too). So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? :) kevin Most spins don't do anything really special apart from install a default set of packages. Maybe this is because of the limitations of kickstart, I don't know. Coming from the Fedora Audio spin here's a few things that we would like to achieve that we can (mostly) from a kickstart: - add default groups for the liveuser and logged in user - add extra kernel boot parameters (threadirqs) - custom desktop themes, favourites, and desktop settings (turning off desktop effects for example) - default autostart apps The main problem we have with kickstarts at the moment is that there is no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. In the future we might like to choose different pulseaudio modules to load, ALSA config based on hardware etc. I don't see how this solution could do this if it were RPM based. If is based as some kind of overlay that alters files owned by other packages post install then there needs to be an obvious indication that this has occurred. I'd expect that whoever writes such a formula would have to get sign off from the owner of the package whose files it modifies. We are working around this by developing an application which the user has to run and is prompted to confirm such changes. Such a program could be configured to run once at startup I guess. This is a work in progress and not in production yet. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On 01/09/2013 05:10 AM, Brendan Jones wrote: On 01/08/2013 09:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: Greetings. I've whipped up the early ideas of a way to replace (most) spins with something that is more generic and useful. I have signed up for a fudcon session to brainstorm on this idea and see if it can be beaten into a plan/schedule/feature, or if it's not going to work for whatever reason. I have a very brainstormy/draft wiki page outlining the idea at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_formulas The short version: Setup a infrastructure/framework around a collection of ansible playbooks to allow our users to simply download a formula for what they want to do and have a curated setup made for them using Fedora packages. Want a electionics lab setup? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a LAMP stack? download. review. answer some questions. click. Want a openstack demo cluster? ditto. Want a graphics designer workstation? ditto. Note that this assumes you have already installed Fedora, it's a post install setup. This would mean that we should continue to do spins for various desktops as people may way to install their desktop as a base before adding on formulas. Of course there's tons of details/questions to work out (many listed on the wiki page, but I'm sure there are more details too). So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? :) kevin Most spins don't do anything really special apart from install a default set of packages. Maybe this is because of the limitations of kickstart, I don't know. Coming from the Fedora Audio spin here's a few things that we would like to achieve that we can (mostly) from a kickstart: - add default groups for the liveuser and logged in user - add extra kernel boot parameters (threadirqs) - custom desktop themes, favourites, and desktop settings (turning off desktop effects for example) - default autostart apps The main problem we have with kickstarts at the moment is that there is no way (according to current packaging guidelines) to alter files owned by other packages. In the future we might like to choose different pulseaudio modules to load, ALSA config based on hardware etc. I don't This is probably not a good example as we could drop such config files in /etc/skel -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 16:18:56 -0800 Mahrud S dinovi...@gmail.com wrote: I know that Slax Linux used to have this feature. You could just choose the modules that you want on the website and download a custom live iso with those packages! strikeBut that feature is disabled now, perhaps because/strike they use a new module system now. This is not exactly what I meant... this would be things you could run/install on any already installed Fedora. It would not have anything to do with creating live isos... it would be just extra things for existing installs. Thats not to say perhaps we couldn't think of a clever way to somehow generate images based on them, but it would probibly take some way to take an existing machine and make a live image from it. Not sure how easy that is to do. Ah, here: http://old.slax.org/build.php I'm not sure whether that's just for show or if it still works though. That's what you are thinking, right? Not exactly, see above. kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Feedback wanted: Fedora Formulas
On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 19:18:36 -0500 Matthew Miller mat...@fedoraproject.org wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:17:35PM +, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote: On 01/08/2013 08:15 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote: So, what do folks think? Workable? Crazy? Crazy enough to work? And we are supposed to QA this how? Like any software? I'm not sure I understand the question, actually. Can you elaborate? I'd welcome any QA thoughts/feedback. I think we would probibly have to have guidelines at least somewhat worked out before we could figure out how to test things. We could do something like what we do for packages, ie, a testing collection and promotion to stable only happens with positive tester feedback. We could try and build into the process some kind of automated testing/tooling. (search for forbidden items, runs in a virt that list all files changed and diffs of those for review, etc. I think QA is definitely something to keep in mind when thinking about the rest of the process... kevin signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
