On Thu, 2015-01-22 at 12:10 -0500, S. wrote:
Hi everyone, so I was reading the openSUSE News page about "Tumbleweed Highlights ‘KDE Applications 14.12 snapshot’" in which they state:
The latest snapshot release of Tumbleweed has several updates. We dub this as the ‘KDE Applications 14.12 snapshot‘ for Tumbleweed since many are related to 14.12.
So does this mean that Tumbleweed is more of a "punctuated-rolling" release based on periodically updated snapshots or update packs, as opposed to the "trickle-rolling" release model of something like Arch, which always receives a few updates every day? I don't really care which is it, I'd just like to know. :)
The integration process of a package into a tumbleweed 'snapshot' is quite different to what e.g. Arch does. Any (literally any, no permission or anything required) branches a package, 'performs his fixes/updates' and submits this to the 'Development project' (openSUSE split the entire distribution in Devel projects, which are mostly 'topic oriented', like KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Kernel and some more collection based, like devel:languages:python). At this stage, one of the 'package maintainers' will have to review the submission and declare if they think it's a good idea or not (basically the same as a github pullrequest). If accepted, merge it into the devel project and forward it to openSUSE:Factory (where the 'snapshots' are being 'forged') At this stage, multiple bots will do some quick sanity checks (are the source files referenced downloadable and unmodified, possibly gpg signature checks, general policy compliance), then it goes for a 'opensuse-review-team' queue (a group of contributors well aware of the openSUSE Packaging guidelines) who verify the rules are adhered and discuss if something is wrong, accept if all is good (most common case). In parallel, the package is evaluated for so called 'staging' (this happens for a subset of packages, which are defined in the so-called 'rings'). Staging is there to ensure that integration of this package does not break other packages (build and functionality) from the rings (the 'outermost ring is basically everything that goes on the installation DVD). If needed, packages can be submitted with fixes and will be evaluated in the same staging area. Only when this is green, the entire staging group is accepted into 'the Factory'. If a package did not qualify to go through staging ('lesser important leave packages not on the DVD'), then it will be accepted into Factory. At this point, the entire tree is molded together in a 'FTP Tree', Live ISOs and installation DVDs. Those newly forged images are handed over to openQA for testing (currently a bit over 100 test collections are run, ranging from simple 'media check' to RAID installations and 'upgrade tests of earlier versions'). If all this comes back successful, the images are published on the usual areas on download.opensuse.org So, all in all, yes, it is 'rolling' in a way that any number of small updates can get merged, but some teams like KDE and GNOME will attempt to always try to submit a larger chunk to get in more 'defined' states. The aim is to get a daily 'Tumbleweed snapshot' out. All the testing goes on the cost of time of course; if you are THAT eager to get updates even faster (and risking more breakages), you are welcome to add some of the devel repositories to your installation mix... but brace for impact :) Hope that explains the thing a bit. Cheers, -- Dimstar / Dominique Leuenberger <dimstar@opensuse.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org