What for 0.5?

What for 0.5?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi!

I think we should aim for a 0.5 release within 2 to 4 weeks.  So, what
do we put in there?

We already have nice things:

  • Better patch handling.

  • MIPS/N32 port.

  • Monads, and other API improvements.

In addition, I think we should:

  • Switch to GCC 4.8 as the default compiler, and thus rebuild the
    bootstrap binaries; optionally, arrange so that those bootstrap
    binaries are the fixed point.

  • Merge the ‘loongson’ branch in ‘core-updates’.

  • Come up with a new VM demo image, with a better (gnu system) API,
    and using a new dmd release (more on that later).

  • More packages, ideally in the GUI/desktop area (you can help! :-)).

What do you think?  Anything else?

I think we should aim for an installation CD image of a basic system
(one I could use ;-), which means dm-crypt, a working dmd, Xorg, and
IceCat, at least) by the end of the year.

Another thing to work on is the infrastructure: we’ll need a MIPS box in
Hydra, and a couple of powerful x86_64 boxes would be welcome.  Also, we
really need to patch Hydra and substitute-binary.scm to sign/verify
binaries.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: What for 0.5?

[Cyril Roelandt]

On 11/03/2013 11:01 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>    • More packages, ideally in the GUI/desktop area (you can help! :-)).

Where are we exactly with GNOME ? Last time I checked, I could not use 
evince, nor eog (that I still have to push...). It would be nice to find 
out how to get those to work, so we can truly say we have parts of a DE 
working :p


Cyril.

Re: What for 0.5?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Cyril Roelandt <tipecaml@gmail.com> skribis:

> On 11/03/2013 11:01 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>>    • More packages, ideally in the GUI/desktop area (you can help! :-)).
>
> Where are we exactly with GNOME ? Last time I checked, I could not use
> evince, nor eog (that I still have to push...). It would be nice to
> find out how to get those to work, so we can truly say we have parts
> of a DE working :p

Exactly, thanks for volunteering!  :-)

For the record, the problem was described at
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2013-10/msg00028.html>.

The envisioned solutions are:

  • Adding support for “profile hooks”, and use that (may have to wait
    until after 0.5.)

  • Use a hack like that of Nixpkgs, which systematically copies and
    rebuilds (with glib-compile-schemas) the “standard” schemas: see
    ‘doCompileSchemas’ at
    <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/gsettings-desktop-schemas/default.nix>
    and its use at
    <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/evince/default.nix>.

The latter seems reasonable, and fairly easy to do.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.

Re: What for 0.5?

[Andreas Enge]

On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 02:04:10PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>   • Use a hack like that of Nixpkgs, which systematically copies and
>     rebuilds (with glib-compile-schemas) the “standard” schemas: see
>     ‘doCompileSchemas’ at
>     <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/gsettings-desktop-schemas/default.nix>
>     and its use at
>     <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/evince/default.nix>.
> 
> The latter seems reasonable, and fairly easy to do.

Could you elaborate on what is happening there? It looks rather mysterious
to me.

Andreas

Re: What for 0.5?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 02:04:10PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>>   • Use a hack like that of Nixpkgs, which systematically copies and
>>     rebuilds (with glib-compile-schemas) the “standard” schemas: see
>>     ‘doCompileSchemas’ at
>>     <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/gsettings-desktop-schemas/default.nix>
>>     and its use at
>>     <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/evince/default.nix>.
>> 
>> The latter seems reasonable, and fairly easy to do.
>
> Could you elaborate on what is happening there? It looks rather mysterious
> to me.

There’s this snippet:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
doCompileSchemas = ''                                                           
  for pkg in "${gsettings_desktop_schemas}" "${gtk3}"; do                       
    cp -s $pkg/share/glib-2.0/schemas/*.gschema.xml $out/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
  done                                                                          
  ${glib}/bin/glib-compile-schemas $out/share/glib-2.0/schemas/                 
'';                                                                             
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

that gets inserted in the post-install phase of Evince and similar
programs.

In addition, Evince & co. have their $XDG_DATA_DIRS that refers to those
schemas:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
     wrapProgram "$out/bin/evince" \                                                                                         
       --prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${shared_mime_info}/share:$out/share"                                                       
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

In effect, it makes sure that all the standard schemas are available
along with each application that needs it.

Ludo’.

Re: What for 0.5?

[Ludovic Courtès]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:

> I think we should aim for a 0.5 release within 2 to 4 weeks.  So, what
> do we put in there?
>
> We already have nice things:
>
>   • Better patch handling.
>
>   • MIPS/N32 port.
>
>   • Monads, and other API improvements.
>
> In addition, I think we should:
>
>   • Switch to GCC 4.8 as the default compiler, and thus rebuild the
>     bootstrap binaries; optionally, arrange so that those bootstrap
>     binaries are the fixed point.
>
>   • Merge the ‘loongson’ branch in ‘core-updates’.
>
>   • Come up with a new VM demo image, with a better (gnu system) API,
>     and using a new dmd release (more on that later).
>
>   • More packages, ideally in the GUI/desktop area (you can help! :-)).
>
> What do you think?  Anything else?

I think we now have most of what we wanted, so it’s now reasonable to
aim for a release within 1 week.  I’ll spend most of that time on the VM
image, and looking at open bugs.  Help welcome!

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: What for 0.5?

[Ludovic Courtès]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:
>
>> I think we should aim for a 0.5 release within 2 to 4 weeks.  So, what
>> do we put in there?
>>
>> We already have nice things:
>>
>>   • Better patch handling.
>>
>>   • MIPS/N32 port.
>>
>>   • Monads, and other API improvements.
>>
>> In addition, I think we should:
>>
>>   • Switch to GCC 4.8 as the default compiler, and thus rebuild the
>>     bootstrap binaries; optionally, arrange so that those bootstrap
>>     binaries are the fixed point.
>>
>>   • Merge the ‘loongson’ branch in ‘core-updates’.
>>
>>   • Come up with a new VM demo image, with a better (gnu system) API,
>>     and using a new dmd release (more on that later).
>>
>>   • More packages, ideally in the GUI/desktop area (you can help! :-)).
>>
>> What do you think?  Anything else?
>
> I think we now have most of what we wanted, so it’s now reasonable to
> aim for a release within 1 week.  I’ll spend most of that time on the VM
> image, and looking at open bugs.  Help welcome!

So weeks take a bit more than 7 days it seems, but we’re getting there!
I’ve worked on the (gnu system) module, now used to build the VM image,
so I think the important pieces are in place (I’ll write about it.)

I’d like to release this Wednesday, so please do not push anything that
triggers big rebuilds until then.

However, it’s still time to look at <http://bugs.gnu.org/guix>.  :-)

Ludo’.