Re: [WBEL-devel] Heads up on RHEL Update2 Beta

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, William Hooper wrote:

> It looks like it might be a good idea to start planning a re-spin to pick
> up the driver updates (to make install easier):

Yup.  I'm hearing tales of up to 250 packages changed from the base 3.0
release.  Should still be doable in a reasonable timeframe even if I won't
have the big Xeons this time.

Been pondering the longterm requirements more as I settle into this for
the long haul.....  Here are my thoughts, if anyone sees any obvious brain
damage whack me, ok?

As the updates roll on over the years, I figure I need to keep a partition
for each supported version/platform, keep each up to date and use that to
build the next update on, then reinstall (only real way to ensure nothing
survives from the previous packages) with it for future errata.  So that
means something like this:

3.x - i386
3.x - amd64 (possibly, depends on when I upgrade the box at home)
4.x - i386
4.x - amd64
5.x - i386
5.x - amd64

Since it would be prudent to figure on needing at least 20GB to respin for
3.0 and add 5-10 with each successive version that pretty much means a
dedicated 200G drive can handle it.

Then there is the question of how to handle the respins on the main site 
in a way to minimize the burden for the mirrors.  The best idea I have had 
so far is to make this respin 3.1 and create a new top level, thus:

delete 3.0-RC1
3.0-RC2
3.0
3.1
contrib

Then make 3.1/en/updates and 3.1/en/obsolete-updates links back to the 3.0
tree.  But will rsync handle that without just duplicating the files on
the mirrors?  It would handle a symlink but would up2date (guess it really
depends on the configuration on the mirror) like that?  Or should up2date
just continue to point at the 3.0 directory for updates, making a symlink
safe?

Either way, links are the only way to tackle the problem, since at two
respins per year per base version that is a boatload of saved storage.

Then there is the question of how many versions to plan on keeping online.  
The base 3.0 version probably needs to stay up for at least the 5yr
availability of errata, but does a whole tree+iso set for 3.1 need to
remain when 3.8 is available?  How many point revisions need to be
available?  I'm inclined to be a little conservative and say at least two.  
As in 3.1 stays until 3.3 appears and has had some time to be declared
good.

-- 
John M.      http://www.beau.org/~jmorris        This post is 100% M$ Free!
Geekcode 3.1:GCS C+++ UL++++$ P++ L+++ W++ w--- Y++ b++ 5+++ R tv- e* r