Announcement: livecd-tools v24.2 and appliance-tools v008.0 (also, new maintainer and plans!)

[Neal Gompa]

Hello all,

Some of you may have already noticed, but for those who haven't,
livecd-tools and appliance-tools have a new maintainer now. I took
over the Fedora packages and the appliance-tools repository in
December, and formally took over the livecd-tools repository a few
weeks ago.

## New project homes

livecd-tools has a new home, with a couple of mirrors:

* Main repository: https://github.com/livecd-tools/livecd-tools
* Primary mirror: https://gitlab.com/livecd-tools/livecd-tools
* Secondary mirror: https://pagure.io/livecd-tools
(Note: The only reason that Pagure is not a co-primary/alternate
mirror is because Pagure doesn't yet have the ability to do automatic
pull mirroring. I manually push to Pagure when I can.)

appliance-tools has a new home as well, and of course with a couple of mirrors:

* Main repository: https://pagure.io/appliance-tools
* Primary mirror: https://gitlab.com/livecd-tools/appliance-tools
* Alternate mirror: https://github.com/livecd-tools/appliance-tools

Contributions are preferred through the main repository of each
project, via pull requests. Patches are also accepted via the project
mailing list: livecd(a)lists.fedoraproject.org [1].

Please note that it is rather difficult for me to review and merge
large patch sets submitted by email, and if you absolutely wish to
email them rather than submit a pull request to the appropriate main
repository, please provide the patches as an attached archive of
patches. When sending smaller patch series, git send-email is the way
to go, as it will produce patches that I can use and apply. The
PulseAudio project has a nice quick tutorial on how to set up and use
git send-email[2]. In either case, please provide a cover letter with
a nice diffstat (as if it was created by git send-email), as it helps
get some picture of the changes. Again, pull requests are *strongly*
preferred.

For livecd-tools, I am considering switching the primary repository
from GitHub to either GitLab or Pagure. Most of my projects are on
GitLab, so I know it quite well and like it. I am using my experience
with appliance-tools as a means to evaluate Pagure for this purpose.
If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it. Please be cautioned
that I *have not* made any decision, and staying put is an equally
valid option for me.

The primary communication channels are via the mailing list (as
mentioned earlier), the issue trackers on the main repositories, and
the IRC channel (#LiveCD-Tools on Freenode).

## What's new

Since I have taken over, quite a few fixes have been contributed and
merged into livecd-tools, and a few pending fixes for appliance-tools
have been merged as well.

With livecd-tools v24.2, several exciting changes have occurred:

* livecd-tools now uses DNF as its dependency resolver.
* livecd-tools now natively operates as a Python 3 application.
* python3-imgcreate is now available from livecd-tools for
applications to take advantage of
* Encrypted home filesystems are now supported by livecd-iso-to-disk
* Multiple live images on a single disk is now supported by livecd-iso-to-disk

appliance-tools v008 has inherited the transition to DNF from
livecd-tools, but still remains a Python 2 application for now.
However, it has received fixes to make it run better on Raspberry Pi
systems. Unlike livecd-tools, appliance-tools remains Fedora-only for
now.

Rawhide has been running on livecd-tools v24 and appliance-tools v008
for a while now, but now I've prepared an update to release
livecd-tools v24.2 and appliance-tools v008 to Fedora 25[3] and have
updated livecd-tools in Mageia to v24.2 in Cauldron (Mageia's
equivalent of Rawhide) for the upcoming Mageia 6.

## What's next?

### Integrating Mageia patches for livecd-tools

Currently, livecd-tools' support for Mageia comes in the form of a few
patches[4] to fix binary paths and disable UEFI support (since lorax
is not available in Mageia). Fixing this situation is key for ongoing
support of Mageia with livecd-tools. I want to see Mageia has a
first-class citizen with livecd-tools, just as Fedora is today.

### Porting appliance-tools to Python 3

The only thing keeping official Python 2 support alive is
appliance-tools. Given the end-of-life of Python 2 is expected within
the next three years, it's critical to move appliance-tools to Python
3.

The major blocker here is its usage of urlgrabber, which the
developers have thus decided to not port to Python 3 and suggest to
look for alternatives. This will need to be addressed to make a port
even possible.

### Supporting Mageia in appliance-tools

Currently, RH/CentOS/Fedora is the only distribution family supported
by appliance-tools. I definitely want to see this change, and have
appliance-tools extended to support Mageia. Any assistance and
contributions would be very welcome.

### Removing unnecessary legacy cruft

There's plenty of dead code paths, especially related to initramfs
handling (support for nash+mkinitrd, etc.). Gutting this and cleaning
up the code will generally make it simpler and easier to maintain.

### Fixing bugs

Obviously. :)

## Now what?

Well, that's it, really. I hope that people who are users of these
tools would be willing to help in the development and the future of
livecd-tools and appliance-tools. I'm always around in some form, and
I'm hopeful that we can come together to help keep these tools moving
forward for those who want to use them.

Thanks to everyone who has worked on livecd-tools and appliance-tools,
as you've set the groundwork for this project, and your contributions
are well-appreciated. Literally hundreds of projects would not have
been possible without your work, and I hope to see that we can
continue moving forward.

Best regards,
Neal

[1]: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]....
[2]: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/HowToUseGitSendEmail/
[3]: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2017-7799a1cc7c
[4]: http://svnweb.mageia.org/packages?view=revision&revision=1089786


-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Brian C. Lane]

On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 08:33:35PM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
>  Thanks to everyone who has worked on livecd-tools and
> appliance-tools,
>  as you've set the groundwork for this project, and your contributions
>  are well-appreciated. Literally hundreds of projects would not have
>  been possible without your work, and I hope to see that we can
>  continue moving forward. 

Thanks for taking over Neal! Looks like you're off to a good start.

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT)

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

----- Original Message -----
>  Some of you may have already noticed, but for those who haven't,
>  livecd-tools and appliance-tools have a new maintainer now. 
I could have sworn that the livecd-tools package was in Fedora 25 updates-testing but
today it doesn't appear to be there... but I grabbed it from Koji and added it to my
local repo until such time as it shows up.

Ben Williams (he uses several nicks, why I don't know... SouthernGentleman, kk4ewt,
etc) wanted me to inform you of a respin SIG he has created.  You can find the IRC channel
for it on Freenode, #fedora-respins. Ben says a bunch of people in that SIG can help test
out your new livecd-tools package.

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
[phone] [home]
[phone] [work]

[Neal Gompa]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 7:07 PM, Scott Dowdle <dowdle(a)montanalinux.org&gt; wrote:
>  Greetings,
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> > Some of you may have already noticed, but for those who haven't,
> > livecd-tools and appliance-tools have a new maintainer now.
>
>  I could have sworn that the livecd-tools package was in Fedora 25 updates-testing but
> today it doesn't appear to be there... but I grabbed it from Koji and added it to my
> local repo until such time as it shows up.
>
>  Ben Williams (he uses several nicks, why I don't know... SouthernGentleman, kk4ewt,
> etc) wanted me to inform you of a respin SIG he has created.  You can find the IRC channel
> for it on Freenode, #fedora-respins. Ben says a bunch of people in that SIG can help test
> out your new livecd-tools package.
>  
I updated appliance-tools to a new build on Sunday, which caused Bodhi
to kick the whole update out...

New update link: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2017-7799a1cc7c

There's also an F26 update pending:
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2017-39782730a2

-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Federico Bruni]

Il giorno mar 14 mar 2017 alle 0:07, Scott Dowdle 
<dowdle(a)montanalinux.org&gt; ha scritto:
>  Greetings,
>  
>  ----- Original Message -----
> >  Some of you may have already noticed, but for those who haven't,
> >  livecd-tools and appliance-tools have a new maintainer now.
>  
>  I could have sworn that the livecd-tools package was in Fedora 25 
>  updates-testing but today it doesn't appear to be there... but I 
>  grabbed it from Koji and added it to my local repo until such time as 
>  it shows up.
>  
>   
Strange... I see the package in Fedora 25 (github URL needs to be 
updated):

$ dnf info livecd-tools
Last metadata expiration check: 5 days, 23:48:44 ago on Wed Mar  8 
07:38:32 2017.
Installed Packages
Name        : livecd-tools
Arch        : x86_64
Epoch       : 1
Version     : 23.4
Release     : 1.fc25
Size        : 146 k
Repo        : @System
 From repo   : fedora
Summary     : Tools for building live CDs
URL         : https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools
License     : GPLv2
Description : Tools for generating live CDs on Fedora based systems 
including
            : derived distributions such as RHEL, CentOS and others. See
            : http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD for more 
details.

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 2:32 AM, Federico Bruni <fede(a)inventati.org&gt; wrote:
>  Il giorno mar 14 mar 2017 alle 0:07, Scott Dowdle <dowdle(a)montanalinux.org&gt;
>  ha scritto:
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >>
> >>  Some of you may have already noticed, but for those who haven't,
> >>  livecd-tools and appliance-tools have a new maintainer now.
> >
> >
> > I could have sworn that the livecd-tools package was in Fedora 25
> > updates-testing but today it doesn't appear to be there... but I grabbed it
> > from Koji and added it to my local repo until such time as it shows up.
> >
> >
>
>  Strange... I see the package in Fedora 25 (github URL needs to be updated):
>
>  $ dnf info livecd-tools
>  Last metadata expiration check: 5 days, 23:48:44 ago on Wed Mar  8 07:38:32
>  2017.
>  Installed Packages
>  Name        : livecd-tools
>  Arch        : x86_64
>  Epoch       : 1
>  Version     : 23.4
>  Release     : 1.fc25
>  Size        : 146 k
>  Repo        : @System
>  From repo   : fedora
>  Summary     : Tools for building live CDs
>  URL         : https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools
>  License     : GPLv2
>  Description : Tools for generating live CDs on Fedora based systems
>  including
>             : derived distributions such as RHEL, CentOS and others. See
>             : http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD for more details.
>  
That's the last version developed by the previous maintainer (Brian C.
Lane). 24.0 onward was my work.



-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!