Saving openmamba

[ercolinux]

Hi,

probably you have read in the news that the development of openmamba is ceased.
The end of the project comes after 10 years of development, for the very large part done by its creator Silvan Calarco alone: he cannot sustain anymore all the work that mantain a whole distro requires.
I’ll really love openmamba and so I’ll do a request to all the community: we can try to find if there is a way to help openmamba to continue to live.
Does not matter how much you know of Linux, to mantain a distro the skills required are many and differents, so everyone can help with ideas, suggestions…and a lot of goodwill.
I can’t deny that it’s not a simple task and it will require commitment to do a good job, but if we are in many all will be easier.

If someone is interested can write ideas and his availability so we can start to work.

Thanks to all

[hdkosch]

Ciao tutti,

I’m Hans-Dieter from Germany. I was happy with Openmamba since years. I have ARM and x64 machines running with it. And now I’m sad to see it dying. If I can help to keep it alive in any way, please let me know. So, let us discuss. I have skills in Linux and more.

Tanti Saluti,
Hans-Dieter Kosch

[ercolinux]

Hi Hans-Dieter,

to let openmamba continue to live we need any kind of help, from packagers to beta tester so your help is really welcome.

If you’ve experience with packaging and compiling on Linux you can ask Silvan to become a packager and help mantain some RPM.

Regards,
Ercole

[hdkosch]

Hi Ercole,

I’m happy that you’ll accept me. Openmamba gave me so much, and now I feel to give something back: That’s Open Source!

I’m not yet very experienced in building packages. But I’m engineer and should be able to learn it 🙂

@Silvan: Would you trust me and give me developers access?

NB: In earlier times, I was developer member in the ‘xine’ linux video player project.

Viva Openmamba!
Salviamo!
Hans-Dieter

[Silvan]

Hi Hans-Dieter,

please go to Development -> Webbuild -> buildvm01 (x86_64) from the top menu of this site.

On that page there should be a dialog stating that you may request authorization by clicking the appropriate button, then wait for my response.

Packaging for openmamba and using the web interface is not a self-explanatory thing and you will maybe need further instructions, but this is the first basic step.

Thanks.

Silvan

[hdkosch]

Hi Silvan,

I’ve followed your guideline.

I know that building a software package is not that simple. In my professional job, I’m software developer based on Unix/Linux since more than 30 years. So I’m confident that I can learn what to do.

Ciao,
Hans-Dieter

[Silvan]

Hi Hans-Dieter,

you now have access to the webbuild interface with initial permissions to send packages to devel-contrib and devel-misc repositories.

You may create packages from urls or update current packages from repositories.

If you don’t know where to start from to help, here is a list of (automatic) package updates failing:

https://openmamba.org/it/development/webbuild/?SHOWLOG=last&NUM=1&REP=0

These packages are managed in “autodist – update for x86_64” and changes applied by specfile patches.

Sorry there is not a guide for the interface and cannot write more details now.

[hdkosch]

Hi Silvan,

the failed package updates are the right thing for me to start — debugging, what I’ve done so often.

Then, roll out of milestone4 could be a next goal.

On weekend, I’ll try to start with first careful steps and learning.

I’ve also subscribed to the developers mailing list, so I think we can communicate that way in future.

I can’t invest very much time, but I’ll try to help where possible.

I hope that other people in the world who enjoy Openmamba read this and are encouraged to help.

Open Source is not a One-Way. If we get benefits from it, we should also contribute to it; which is not possible with Closed Source.

In tal senso,
Ciao,
Hans-Dieter

[Silvan]

Hi Hans-Dieter,

fixing and maintaining current package updates is very important to keep the distribution alive but so far this activity has taken too much time to allow me to develop new things. So it will be good and very useful if you and others can help in this process which varies from very simple activities on some packages (just like updating the list of files packaged) to difficult ones (for instance chromium update).

I suggest to start with the webbuild, which should always be used as the base, but I should next provide ssh access to build vms for better debugging of build problems.

For you and anyone interested I’ve published a chart of the openmamba development model which I made some time ago which may be useful to know to developers:

openmamba development model

As for details on using the webbuild for short questions you can use the “Chat with online developers” box in webbuild pages, so I can quickly give you some hints.

Thanks and best regards,
Silvan

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Silvan.

[hdkosch]

Hi Silvan,

your chart gives me some more understanding. But I still can’t manage to really work with the webbuild. I’m a command line developer of the old school, accustomed to use Makefiles, scripts, analyzing log files, cvs, svn, git, etc.

When I look at the failures in the last build log, then I think that I really need ssh access to see what happened and to be able to effectively help.

Ciao,
Hans-Dieter

[Silvan]

Hi Hans-Dieter,

according to how it currently works webbuild should be used to prepare, update, build and send .spec files to repositories and to let other developers know what you are working to prevent overlapping (this are just the basic things webbuild is used for).

ssh is often necessary to debug problems, make patches, etc., but a basic webbuild usage is required and we can get into details by analyzing a real case.

So let’s try, if you send me your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub I will then give you instructions on how to access the build vm(s). Being the first time I give this access, this will be experimental.

You may prefer sending your ssh public key by using the ABOUT -> Contact US form on this site.

Thanks,
Silvan

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