Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Sjors Gielen]

Hey lists,

I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin. Currently, 
my plan is to:
- Provide some required patches to the Cygwin team, for example to allow 
a file in use to be removed or modified, since this is required for dpkg
- Re-compile all packages and patches currently available for Cygwin 
into a Debian .deb
- Provide either a way to bootstrap Debian onto an existing Cygwin 
installation, or provide installers for a pure Debian/kCygwin installation.

Now I'm wondering where to host this project. I've been thinking about 
three locations: Sourceforge, Debian or Cygwin. I've filed a project 
takeover request for Sourceforge, but the original project admin seems 
to work against me a little and it doesn't seem "fit" to release there.

Since the largest part of the project would be the packages in their new 
Debian source and binary forms, I at least need an apt repository. The 
Debian project already has the structure for that, but the Cygwin 
packages are different from their Debian counterparts (think patches), 
and I'm not sure how that happens with other ports. debian-devel, is 
this a problem?

Also, I don't know if the Cygwin team may be willing to host this 
project. They have their own packages and manager, and may not be 
willing to host this alternative, even if it works great in a few weeks 
time. Cygwin list, what do you think?

Thanks,
Sjors

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Samuel Thibault]

Sjors Gielen, le Tue 20 Jan 2009 00:49:29 +0100, a écrit :
> I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin.

Ususally ports are hosted by debian-ports.org.

Samuel

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Carsten Hey]

Hi.

Sjors Gielen wrote:
> Now I'm wondering where to host this project. I've been thinking about
> three locations: Sourceforge, Debian or Cygwin. I've filed a project
> takeover request for Sourceforge, but the original project admin seems
> to work against me a little and it doesn't seem "fit" to release
> there.

debian-cygwin.sf.net is a Debian GNU/w32 port and I see no reason to
remove the project page on Sourceforge. Although there are no releases,
there has been some work done (see http://lists.debian.org/debian-win32/)
and this site should IMHO at least reside for historical reasons. Maybe
there is a chance to reanimate this project or at least reuse some of
the work that has been done or concepts that have been developed.

You called your port Debian/kCygwin, so why don't you prefer
debian-kcygwin instead of debian-cygwin as Sourceforge project name? The
former is still available.

A few comments about the name:
 - Debian GNU/kCygwin seems to fit better since you use a GNU userland
   and Debian people tend to share the FSF view about naming operating
   systems.
 - The "k" means normally "kernel of". The idea is probably born because
   Debian GNU/FreeBSD was already taken by a port that used the libc
   from FreeBSD. Later IIRC Robert Milan had the idea to use the GNU
   libc for a Debian FreeBSD Port and only the kernel from FreeBSD. This
   makes porting single packages a lot easier but requires porting glibc
   first (the FreeBSD specific diff against glibc is IIRC about 1 MB).

> Since the largest part of the project would be the packages in their
> new Debian source and binary forms, I at least need an apt repository.
> The Debian project already has the structure for that ...

You can create the repository yourself using eg. reprepro until your
port is more integrated into the Debian infrastructure.

I don't think that you will get the permission to host your port on
debian-ports.org and thus make this port semi-official before you prove
that there has been a significant amount of work done since you are yet
unknown among the Debian developers and currently no Debian developer is
working with you on this. Debian operates an own Sourceforge clone but
this is hosted on a single server with a relatively small harddisk, so
this is not an option for hosting.

I would first host it on Sourceforge using a not already taken project
name and after you are able to show first results try to move it to
debian-ports.org. Chances that it will be hosted on debian-ports.org and
be integrated in the whole Debian infrastructure are way better when you
are able to provide some working packages, at least "required",
"important" and a subset of "standard" and "optional" (I think about
things like perl and build-essential including its dependencies as
a useful subset of "standard" and "optional").

The reasons for the relatively few responses to your mail are probably
that most Debian people are not that interested in Windows in general
and that you did not provide pointers to the work you have done until
now. When you look at the subscriber count of debian-win32 you see that
there are at least some people that are interested in such things (it
has even more subscribers than debian-qa or debian-www).

Such a big project is easier to do when you work together with other
people, a more detailed mail with pointers to code and/or specifications
to debian-win32@lists.debian.org might be a good way to find those.


I wish you much fun and success with your port
Carsten


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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Carsten Hey]

Sjors Gielen wrote:
> ... but the Cygwin packages are different from their Debian
> counterparts (think patches), and I'm not sure how that happens with
> other ports. debian-devel, is this a problem?

No, this is no problem. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD also uses additional
patches.

Carsten

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Samuel Thibault]

Hello,

Just a comment about the debian-win32 project: I can read from the list
archive that the main issue was that the VFS doesn't allow to remove or
to overwrite through mv a file in use.  IIRC that issue got fixed not so
many months ago in cygwin, and I can confirm that it now seems to work:

$ cat test.c
#include <fcntl.h>
int main(void) {
	int fd = open("blip", O_RDONLY);
	pause();
}
$ gcc test.c -o test
$ touch blip
$ ./test &
$ rm blip
$ touch blip
$ ./test &
$ touch blop
$ mv blop blip

So maybe debian-win32 could just be awaken since the barring issue seems gone?

Samuel

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Sjors Gielen]

Hey,

Thanks for all your answers!

Carsten Hey wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 11:14:24AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>> So maybe debian-win32 could just be awaken since the barring issue
>> seems gone?
> 
> This is what I would try first. I hope you are successful with this.
> 
> Carsten

I was using Cygwin 1.5 when I started working on this. I indeed noticed 
that in Cygwin CVS this has been fixed already.

Carsten Hey wrote:
 > debian-cygwin.sf.net is a Debian GNU/w32 port and I see no reason to
 > remove the project page on Sourceforge. Although there are no
 > releases, there has been some work done (see
 > http://lists.debian.org/debian-win32/)
 > and this site should IMHO at least reside for historical reasons.
 > Maybe there is a chance to reanimate this project or at least reuse
 > some of the work that has been done or concepts that have been
 > developed.

I started with the idea when I noticed this project. It had been dead 
for a few years, and I liked the idea and looked into it. I had some 
contact with the original admin. He added me to the project, created an 
SVN repository on my request, but refused to make me an admin, which is 
needed to i.e. modify the project web frontend. When I filed a project 
takeover, the admin removed my SVN commit access.
Everything currently in SVN is mine (and that's not much, but I've got a 
lot more waiting here, until I can commit it somewhere.) CVS only 
contains the same old dpkg sources twice, and some binary builds.

I'm still waiting for the admin to either accept or reject the project 
takeover request. I don't have a lot of hope there, he seems to be 
working against me.

I also e-mailed the debian-ports admin, and he said the same as you: 
there needs to be a base system before it can be hosted there. Base 
system means gcc, g++, dpkg-dev, etc.

For now, I will keep working on the project locally, until I can host 
everything I have now at Sourceforge. Once I have a base system going, 
I'll e-mail the debian-ports admin again.

Again, thanks for your replies!
Sjors

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Samuel Thibault]

Sjors Gielen, le Wed 21 Jan 2009 13:28:55 +0100, a écrit :
> I started with the idea when I noticed this project. It had been dead 
> for a few years, and I liked the idea and looked into it. I had some 
> contact with the original admin. He added me to the project, created an 
> SVN repository on my request, but refused to make me an admin, which is 
> needed to i.e. modify the project web frontend.

Did you tell him so?

> When I filed a project takeover, the admin removed my SVN commit
> access.

I could understand that if you didn't ask for admin rights and
explaining why.

> I'm still waiting for the admin to either accept or reject the project 
> takeover request. I don't have a lot of hope there, he seems to be 
> working against me.

Well I'd fork then, thank the free software licenses ;)

Samuel

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Sjors Gielen]

Samuel Thibault schreef:
> Sjors Gielen, le Wed 21 Jan 2009 13:28:55 +0100, a écrit :
>> I started with the idea when I noticed this project. It had been dead 
>> for a few years, and I liked the idea and looked into it. I had some 
>> contact with the original admin. He added me to the project, created an 
>> SVN repository on my request, but refused to make me an admin, which is 
>> needed to i.e. modify the project web frontend.
> 
> Did you tell him so?

I didn't tell him I needed admin access, but I did ask for it. (Either 
way, there's no reason for him not to give access, especially since he 
hasn't done anything in years.)

>> When I filed a project takeover, the admin removed my SVN commit
>> access.
> 
> I could understand that if you didn't ask for admin rights and
> explaining why.
> 
>> I'm still waiting for the admin to either accept or reject the project 
>> takeover request. I don't have a lot of hope there, he seems to be 
>> working against me.
> 
> Well I'd fork then, thank the free software licenses ;)

I'm planning to start from scratch if this doesn't work out. There's no 
use forking, there's nothing to fork. :)

Sjors


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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Samuel Thibault]

BTW, AIUI from a cygwin point of view, in principle there shouldn't
be any need to patch debian sources: if cygwin behaves differently
from linux, then it's a bug in cygwin.  One exception is of course the
configure target which contains cygwin instead of linux.  Appart from
that, every fix should ideally be in cygwin.  Now you're of course free
to patch things in the debian package so as to make quick progress, but
on the long term there shouldn't be any patch except in configure
scripts.

Samuel

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Sjors Gielen]

Tzafrir Cohen schreef:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:49:29AM +0100, Sjors Gielen wrote:
>> Hey lists,
>>
>> I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin. Currently,  
>> my plan is to:
>> - Provide some required patches to the Cygwin team, for example to allow  
>> a file in use to be removed or modified, since this is required for dpkg
>> - Re-compile all packages and patches currently available for Cygwin  
>> into a Debian .deb
>> - Provide either a way to bootstrap Debian onto an existing Cygwin  
>> installation, or provide installers for a pure Debian/kCygwin 
>> installation.
> 
> Which libc do you intend to use?
> 
> Cygwin uses newc, IIRC, but I can't find it packaged in Debian so far.
> 

As far as I understand it now, newlib is packed along with Cygwin itself 
in cygwin1.dll. I'm thinking of a package libcygwin1, which will contain 
this (and maybe other) dlls. This package will just be created in the 
process of getting Debian to work on Cygwin :)

Sjors

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 02:24:15PM +0100, Sjors Gielen wrote:
> Tzafrir Cohen schreef:
>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:49:29AM +0100, Sjors Gielen wrote:
>>>I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin.
>>>Currently, my plan is to: - Provide some required patches to the Cygwin
>>>team, for example to allow a file in use to be removed or modified,
>>>since this is required for dpkg - Re-compile all packages and patches
>>>currently available for Cygwin into a Debian .deb - Provide either a
>>>way to bootstrap Debian onto an existing Cygwin installation, or
>>>provide installers for a pure Debian/kCygwin installation.
>>Which libc do you intend to use?  Cygwin uses newc, IIRC, but I can't
>>find it packaged in Debian so far.
>
>As far as I understand it now, newlib is packed along with Cygwin
>itself in cygwin1.dll.  I'm thinking of a package libcygwin1, which
>will contain this (and maybe other) dlls.  This package will just be
>created in the process of getting Debian to work on Cygwin :)

I think that no one answered your original question.  We are not interested
in hosting your project at sourceware.org and discussion of it in this
mailing list is not really on-topic for the Cywgin list.  The Cygwin
mailing list is for discussion about the cygwin release that is hosted
at the cygwin web site.

Feel free to send a follow-up message with a pointer to the mailing list
where you will be continuing any discussion about this topic.  I would
appreciate it if further discussion was directed there.

cgf

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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[David Given]

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Sjors Gielen wrote:
[...]
> I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin.

Yes, yes, I know I'm replying to a post over a month old. Nevertheless,
I recently found something that's relevant:

http://debian-interix.net/

This is a Debian port on top of Interix, a.k.a. Microsoft Services for
Unix, the unix-alike that runs on the NT kernel. Unlike Cygwin it
doesn't go through the win32 layer and so doesn't need all the emulation
layers, which gives it (allegedly) much better I/O throughput, proper
case sensitive filenames, inode semantics, etc.

While installation is still a bit tortuous, they have a buildd and claim
to support a decent number of packages...

Is this of interest to anyone?

- --
David Given
dg@cowlark.com
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Re: Hosting the Debian/kCygwin port?

[Salokine Terata]

Hi,

Maybe you could document your works on http://wiki.debian.org/Kernel ?

Look at Debian/kFreeBSD for example.

Best regards.
Salokine.



On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 02:24:15PM +0100, Sjors Gielen wrote:
> Tzafrir Cohen schreef:
>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:49:29AM +0100, Sjors Gielen wrote:
>>>I'm working on a project porting the Debian tools to Cygwin.
>>>Currently, my plan is to: - Provide some required patches to the Cygwin
>>>team, for example to allow a file in use to be removed or modified,
>>>since this is required for dpkg - Re-compile all packages and patches
>>>currently available for Cygwin into a Debian .deb - Provide either a
>>>way to bootstrap Debian onto an existing Cygwin installation, or
>>>provide installers for a pure Debian/kCygwin installation.
>>Which libc do you intend to use?  Cygwin uses newc, IIRC, but I can't
>>find it packaged in Debian so far.
>
>As far as I understand it now, newlib is packed along with Cygwin
>itself in cygwin1.dll.  I'm thinking of a package libcygwin1, which
>will contain this (and maybe other) dlls.  This package will just be
>created in the process of getting Debian to work on Cygwin :)

I think that no one answered your original question.  We are not interested
in hosting your project at sourceware.org and discussion of it in this
mailing list is not really on-topic for the Cywgin list.  The Cygwin
mailing list is for discussion about the cygwin release that is hosted
at the cygwin web site.

Feel free to send a follow-up message with a pointer to the mailing list
where you will be continuing any discussion about this topic.  I would
appreciate it if further discussion was directed there.

cgf

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