[PureOS] Bits from PureOS | Sharks!

[Matthias Klumpp]

Am Mo., 5. Aug. 2019 um 19:20 Uhr schrieb Jeremiah C. Foster
<jeremiah.foster at puri.sm>:
> [...]
> I agree with everything you wrote. Sorry it took me so long to come
> around to your way of seeing things, I don't understand the system and
> the implications as well as you do. But I understand much better now.

Thanks! I think explaining this stuff is absolutely vital: First
because I could make a mistake or there could be a reason I didn't
think of which makes another option the much preferred choice, and
second to just explain the steps so next time things come up people
know about it.
FWIW, there *are* reasons to not choose this option (e.g. not wanting
to leavy any user behind on green), however I think they are less
important compared to the advantages the new-suite option has. I
believe that going that route is the right engineering choice.

> I already have a discussion regarding these changes, mostly just a
> question to the forum users as to whether they prefer a stable or
> rolling release. I'm surprised by how many forum users prefer stable.
> https://forums.puri.sm/t/would-you-use-a-pureos-rolling-release-or-do-you-want-a-stable-pureos/6536

That's actually pretty interesting! I am quite sure when we started
PureOS a similar question was asked, and the overwhelming majority
wanted a rolling release like Arch Linux (which back then surprised
me, as I was in the "make fixed releases" camp).

> What can I do to assist you and support you in the work?

The changes to the archive are a sequence of dak commands and SQL
queries, which TBH I need to figure out *again* - when we made Tanglu,
every new release was an experience of re-learning the same stuff
again. This time I will condense the steps into a Laniakea command, so
I don't have to remember all that stuff next time - that's the point
of having Laniakea afterall. I don't think there is much you could
help with in that particular area until the new archive suites are up.
The image generator could use some help though: lb config as run in
https://source.puri.sm/pureos/infra/make-live/blob/master/auto/config#L158
has arguments to include security/updates suite which we must use,
also that same script will need to treat "green" and "amber"
differently (with only applying the flags for updates for amber).
There is even a chance that the PureOS profile in live-build needs a
patch to make that stuff work correctly. That is definitely something
where help and testing is needed!
Also, once the new suite is up, there are a lot of things that need
testing - depending how much I need to change in the archive, we need
quite a bit of checks to ensure everything still works correctly.

In any case, we need to get started with this stuff ASAP, but
unfortunately I will not have the next two weekends to work on this,
so I'll have to do these changes incrementally during the next two
weeks. Having a fast feedback loop will be incredibly helpful there -
as soon as you notice *anything* weird, just ping me immediately.
(I do not anticipate major problems though - splitting out releases
was a major pain in Tanglu, but we never really had big problems with
it)
I'll try to write a Laniakea helper for the necessary steps this time,
and also maybe instructions, so others can make releases in future as
well.

Cheers,
    Matthias