[Pkg-xen-devel] Most productive manner of building custom xen packages

Justin Ryan justizin at fastergreener.net
Sat Feb 28 06:53:34 UTC 2009


Howdy..

I've been doing a lot of experimental work with Xen 3.3.1 and a SuSE-based
Linux 2.6.27 kernel, as well as 2.6.28-based pvops dom0 support, on Ubuntu
8.10.

[hold the tomatoes and read on, please]

I did some basic work to save myself some time with kernel-package, and by
adapting the debian/ files from the Ubuntu 8.10 xen-3.3 source package,
which is a bit crippled.

I looked into the documentation for Ubuntu package building, and there are
strong statements to put as much energy into the Debian base as possible.

I feel it is likely that both Debian and Ubuntu in the next year are likely
to support more recent kernels with dom0 support via pvops when it enters,
as I am told is planned by 2.6.29 or 2.6.30 Linus code.

As I struggle to adapt the Ubuntu debian/ files for xen to 3.3.1, which is
pretty much working, it occurs to me that as Debian continues to at least
support the existing Xen distribution in Etch and Lenny, that future Ubuntu
support is likely to be sourced in Debian.

Furthermore, in my hosted environment, I've had some better experience
getting iSCSI to work with Etch than Ubuntu, but with many other
dependencies I'm facing for custom tools, Intrepid is very nice.  It occurs
to me I should probably try Lenny, as many Xen-related tools I want to work
with can run portions in DomU, and those portions have heavier dependencies.

In any case, I'd like for the work I do on this to be potentially
contributory, as it's very important for me, feature-wise, to work with the
latest Xen, and the most recent Dom0 software possible.  I would really like
to produce a package built on Debian, which will also build on Ubuntu.

I implore upon the list a simple request of any assistance you may offer,
understanding that this will be in an out of band Launchpad PPA, but I would
like to test builds on Debian before submitting for Ubuntu builds so that I
can ensure my work has the greatest amount of options for deployment, and
ensure that my dependencies are as correct and flexible as possible, as
other things I install on Ubuntu may satisfy needs that should be specified
for a similar Debian deployment.

Thanks in advance for any assistance, I only hope to help.  I feel with
pvops dom0 support it would make sense for the Ubuntu community to re-accept
Xen, but if that doesn't happen, I'd like to work closely with anyone
building Debian Xen packages to develop something, even if only available
for a long time via PPA, which is workable for modern Ubuntu systems, which
have many niceties.

Best,

J

-- 
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
- His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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