[Aurora-sparc-devel] Install Cd's?

[Dean Anderson]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008, Dennis Gilmore wrote:

> On Monday 07 April 2008, Dean Anderson wrote:
> > I notice that mkisofs 2.01 has removed the silo options.
> >
> > What version of mkisofs is used to make aurora boot cds?
> >
> > I've asked this many, many times, and have NEVER gotten a satisfactory
> > answer:  Can you post the scripts that you use to build aurora and all
> > the options that you send to the rpmbuild FOR EVERY RPM.  The last time
> > I went though this was with the messed up kernel source rpm.
> >
> > The idea of RPM was to create a reproducible build.  If that can't be
> > done, the whole idea collapses. For a very long time now Aurora builds
> > haven't been reproducible.
> >
> > 		--Dean
> 
> everything is built in koji/mock.  its available in the repository. everything 
> is built without specifying any options.  we use pungy to create the install 
> media.  the same tools used to build fedora are used to build aurora.

[I realize that aurora is a volunteer project, and I don't want to be
overly harsh. But brutal honesty is sometimes best. I do appeciate what
you all do, and hope the criticism will improve the process.  Zipper
up... ;-)]

Except your build machines have software installed on them that is used
to build, but is not identified.  This was how the kernel src rpm
screwup went unnoticed for so long, and why it took two tries to fix.

You have rpmmacros and options that set variables that would otherwise
have to be passed in as options to rpmbuild. So you do pass in variables
to rpmbuild, just perhaps not on the command line.  None of this is
documented.

Last, you don't test your src rpms outside of your koji/mock build
environment. That's why you didn't know (eg) that you didn't provide all
the sources to the kernel.

That fedora does the same thing is discreditable if true. But I haven't
found any fedora source rpms that aren't buildable. So they are doing a
better job at keeping a clean build environment. Using koji/mock doesn't
guarentee a clean build environment. They just provides automation for
building. Its up to you to provide a clean build environment.

One way to make sure you have a clean build environment is Before every
release, you should reinstall your build machines completely from
scratch.  

Another way is to make sure you don't add software to build machine, or
change rpm macros or change rpm settings. If you do, you have to
document those changes in the spec file. If packages have to be
installed, they should be reflected in spec file.

Otherwise, you have a unique build environment with unique and
undocumented software and undistributed sources. Which is what you have
now, and is why aurora builds aren't reproducible, yet fedora builds are 
reproducible.

		--Dean

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