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[arch-dev-public] New toolchain stuff in testing
by Jan de Groot 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

Hi all, Andy and I uploaded a new toolchain to testing. This includes a new binutils, a new gcc and a new glibc. On AMD64, the old stable 2.17 binutils doesn't function correctly in all cases with gcc 4.2 and glibc 2.6 (I was waiting for a binutils 2.18 release, but it's not coming within the next month I'm afraid). One big new feature in the new binutils is the support for GNU hashing, which is, according to Redhat, 50% faster in symbol lookups when doing dynamic linking. The GNU hashing is incompatible with the older hashing. There's a way inbetween: supporting both hash styles. The gcc in testing enforces both hash styles in the resulting linked binary. This means the size increases (I've seen libstdc++.so.6 and libc.so.6 getting increased by 10-20KB on a 1-2MB sized binary), but we maintain compatibility with other distributions and with our current "old style" glibc whenever something gets built with this toolchain. this is also the road taken by Debian. As long as binutils 2.17.50.xx isn't a so called stable release, we will keep this duplicate hashing style around, we have to decide what to do after the 2.18 release of binutils. (gcc-fortran will follow later tomorrow btw). Have fun testing this new toolchain, please report any bugs you find in flyspray.

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[arch-dev-public] more repo reorg - take 2
by Paul Mattal 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

So the discussion so far suggests to me that I was wrong; in fact, it would not be easy to maintain any sort of [lite] or [full] that was limited in any way amongst the entire group. We will no longer have a set of packages of any predictable size we can carry around. One point still being missed about base vs. support: right now we are sloppy. We assume that certain packages are installed because they are in base or just because they are important. We should either: a) make our dependencies complete and not rely on such things OR b) have some group of packages that users should assume will break things if they remove. I think a) is better. So I amend my suggestion: [core]: has 2 categories - base, support base is by default fully installed when Arch is installed (base category pkgs also in base group for easy depends) support is by default not installed when Arch is installed only package dependencies require base pkgs to be installed (means we must fix our dependencies) draws from existing base category + drivers/utilities needed for installs minimize size stringent review/discussion for changing base, less so for support [main]: everything else Also, this can be done now because it's relatively easy. - P

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[arch-dev-public] New /arch/db-* scripts
by Thomas Bächler 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

I started writing new database scripts to replace the old db-*/updatesync-many/pkgdb2 scripts. The reason are support for the new pacman 3 naming scheme and fixing some design issues. The old scripts use PKGBUILDs a lot for their operation and don't check the package file for consistency with the PKGBUILD (only the filename). They also move every file from the staging dir, regardless of whether the package will be added in any repository. And they recreate much of the functionality from updatesync, sort of reinventing the wheel. My new draft has a cleaner design, but some new problems appear. It performs the following steps: 1) Check every file in the staging/add dir using a small libalpm-based tool and obtain the pkgname, pkgver, pkgrel and architecture. Compare the arch specified in the commandline with the arch from the package (this step is missing in the old scripts). Find the PKGBUILD and compare pkgname, pkgver and pkgrel with the values from the package. If all checks are okay, add the package to a list. If additionally, a force flag is set in the PKGBUILD, add it to a "force-list". 2) Check every file in the staging/del dir and obtain its pkgname. Add this package to a delete list. 3) Lock the database 4) Move all packages and force-packages to the ftp dir, add them with repo-add. 5) Pass the package files to a pkgdb2-like tool to add them to the web interface. 6) Delete all package from the delete-list with repo-remove. 7) Pass the package names to a pkgdb2-like tool to remove them from the web interface. 8) Release the database lock. The problems I run into are these: a) In step 4) I can't determinte the filename of the old package and remove it from the ftp. I could scan for certain filename schemes, but take into account that the package filename could be anything now, the script doesn't care. We could however rely on our current filename scheme to find/remove the dupes (who would go through the trouble to rename his package to sth like wrongname-notapackage.zip.bz8 anyway?). b) The same thing counts for step 6). But we mv our packages to the staging/del anyway so the script won't have to remove them from the ftp. c) This is the biggest problem currently. In step 5), due to the new script design, I don't have any data from the PKGBUILD any more and don't want to go find it again. That means I only use data from the package file itself to add it to the mysql db. The package file lacks the "package category" and "source" which are in the web interface. I could only solve this by either removing this data from the web interface or adding it to the package file. d) The web interface doesn't support different architectures, so only data for the i686 packages is shown. That is a bad thing imo, but once data for more architectures is added, we need to be more careful about removing things from the web interface, as one architecture might lose a package that the other still keeps. I'd appreciate any comments on this, especially to problem c).

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[arch-dev-public] repo reorg
by Paul Mattal 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

I support reorganizing, but like the fact that a single full CD can give me a pretty useful system if I'm a disconnected install. I also support using more repos rather than fewer, since with repoman the repos will become less of a hassle to manage. I support wide driver support, but don't think wireless drivers need to be installed on every box! So let me take a shot at a scheme: [core]: installed whenever Arch is installed draws from existing base category minimize size free/unencumbered only stringent review/discussion for changing [support]: drivers/utilities needed for installs included on core install cd [lite]: fits on cd with installer free/unencumbered as much function as we can pack into 1 cd stringent review/discussion for changing [full]: everything else this should continue to fit on 1 of some medium (now DVD) Nice aspects of this include that people who want a totally free system can rely on lite providing that, core can be really small, and people can have all the drivers they need at install time. - P

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Re: [arch-dev-public] [arch-dev] newsletter?
by Jason Chu 10 Jul '07

10 Jul '07

On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 11:41:20AM -0700, Jason Chu wrote: > On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 09:17:24AM -0700, eliott wrote: > > Anything happening with the newsletter lately? > > Looks like there hasn't been one in a month or two.. > > Good point. I don't write it, I just write the devland section. The other > Jason writes it. I'll send him an email. > > Jason I heard back from Jason a little while ago. He hasn't had time during the summer to write the newsletter. He said he probably will have enough time at the beginning of August. I'm sending this to the public list too. If anyone reading this wants to help with the newsletter (writing all the sections except Devland), send me an email. Let's see if we can find more support so that one person can take some time off! Jason

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[arch-dev-public] Absence
by Roman Kyrylych 10 Jul '07

10 Jul '07

Hi! As you all know I wasn't very active recently due to technical issues. Now it's time for personal issues.... I'll be totally absent starting from today and up to approximately 10th of July. I may have access to Internet on 7th and/or 8th, so I'll try to watch for bugtracker then, and if devmeeting will be on 8th - will try to attend to it (small chance though). Bye. -- Roman Kyrylych (Роман Кирилич)

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[arch-dev-public] Kernel 2.6.22 in testing
by Thomas Bächler 10 Jul '07

10 Jul '07

This is a copy of my mail to the [arch] mailing list: Good morning, just a few minutes ago, the 2.6.22 kernel has been submitted to the testing repository. Please test it and report any bugs that might occur, so we hopefully can move it to current within a week. This kernel will also be the basis of the "Archlinux 2007.07 Don't panic" snapshot. For any changes in 2.6.22, see this site: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_22 I'd like to emphasize two changes: We re-added the rt2x00 drivers which (thanks to the mac80211 stack being merged in 2.6.22) now compile again and seem to work for me (rt2500pci). The mac80211 stack also allows us to ship the iwlwifi driver for intel 3945 and 4965 users. The driver for the 3945 is not as stable as ipw3945 yet, so people should not switch to it yet. However, it is the only driver for the 4965 wireless chipset. Both i686 and x86_64 now include the option for Intel Microcode updates which has been requested several times. I am going to add microcode_ctl to the repos, until then it is available from the AUR. Happy testing and good night Thomas

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[arch-dev-public] rc-kernels for x86_64
by Thomas Bächler 04 Jul '07

04 Jul '07

Hi, I built 2.6.22-rc5 and modules for x86_64. I used the same PKGBUILDs that tpowa used and built all modules that he has in his repos (except the ones that are not available in arch64 repos, like fcpci and ltmodem those won't build anyway). Because of some header changes in 2.6.22, fglrx is also missing, it doesn't build on x86_64 right now. If anyone is interested, please send me a fix. Get the packages here: [kernel] Server = http://www.archlinux.org/~thomas/rc-kernel-x86_64 This repository also contains iwlwifi packages for intel 3945 and 4965 wireless. It is quite unstable as far as I can tell, but it is the only driver for the 4965 (for the 3945, you should use the ipw3945 package for now). @tpowa: If you want to add iwlwifi to yours too, here are the PKGBUILDs: http://www.archlinux.org/~thomas/iwlwifi/

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[arch-dev-public] Moving eclipse-ecj from testing to extra
by Jan de Groot 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Hi all devs, Last night I committed a new gcj package to extra, but forgot to move the eclipse-ecj package from testing to extra. Could someone do this one, as I'm at my job currently and have no time to move it now. Thanks.

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Re: [arch-dev-public] [tur-users] tightvnc-1.3.9-1 prob
by Paul Mattal 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Jason R Begley wrote: > There is a problem with tightvnc-1.3.9-1 with the font path and path to > x11, rgb. Here is output of problems: I apparently bolloxed this one up by uploading a stale package file from my development. There's a tightvnc-1.3.9-2 up now which should be better. - P

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