[Release] Square Pyramid
by Richard Maw
Square Pyramid is released
==========================
The [Baserock team], and [Codethink Limited] are proud to announce the third
public release of the Baserock system build infrastructure. In this release,
[Square Pyramid] we are pleased to be able to showcase the ability of Baserock
to build a system entirely from [Git repositories].
What is in Square Pyramid
-------------------------
Square Pyramid is a development release of Baserock. It consists of four VM
images; `base` and `devel` for `x86_32` and `x86_64`. `base` is a relatively
small system, used as an example target image, and `devel` is a system with
all the tools required to build itself, plus development conveniences like
text editors and debugging tools.
What has changed since Secret Volcano?
--------------------------------------
We updated `busybox` to a newer release, which fixes vi's `$` command.
The current time is set by ntpd.
We no longer use busybox's `less`.
`cmake` and `valac` have been added to allow building new types of software,
`strace` and `gdb` have been added to aid debugging of programs, and `lsof`
has been added for debugging system problems.
`rsync` has been added, this will make copying disk images between VMs easier.
`morph` has seen more internal changes.
- System and Stratum morphologies don't need to be in the same repository any
more.
- Where artifacts are cached to is printed to the terminal, so it's easier to
find where built system images are located.
- The `morph build` command is now called `morph build-morphology`.
- System and Stratum morphologies have been renamed
- x86_64-generic-base-system is now base-system-x86_64-generic
- x86_64-generic-devel-system is now devel-system-x86_64-generic
- Development System images are 2G in size, rather than 10G, since
the recommended practise is to add an extra disk for caches anyway.
- The baserock workflow tools are now considered useful, if not very well
documented.
- `morph init $dir` creates a workspace
- When in `$dir`, `morph checkout baserock:morphs master` will check out
the master system branch into your workspace.
- `morph branch baserock:morphs $foo [master]` will create a new branch
called `$foo` based off `master`
- `morph edit $system $stratum $chunk` will allow you to make changes to
the chunk `$chunk` in the system.
- `morph build $system` will build the system called `$system`
based on the current state of your current system branch
- Build is pretty cool, as it allows you to build without committing
your changes, but since morph needs to build from committed code, it
commits in a temporary branch, which means you can see what changed
between builds.
How do I get started?
---------------------
You can find a [quick start] guide on the [Baserock wiki] and also a short
guide on [developing with Baserock] which follows on from the quick start and
shows you how to get to the point of proving you can build Baserock within
Baserock.
>From that point on, your imagination is the limit. We're working on several
things we hope to showcase later in the year and you can follow some of that
development in the [Git repositories] we publish.
How do I get in contact
-----------------------
The Baserock project has an [IRC channel] and [mailing list] for developers to
gather and discuss anything associated with Baserock. It is strongly
recommended that you use the IRC and lists to contact the team for anything
associated with the public development of Baserock. We also have a mailing
list for [announcements] which will be notified of any new releases or big
developments in Baserock.
Should you manage to find a bug in Baserock, we'd like to hear from you. You
can find our [bug reporting guidelines] on the Baserock wiki and we will do our
best to help.
We hope you enjoy experimenting with Baserock and look forward to hearing about
any cool things you do with our work.
Richard Maw
(On behalf of the Baserock team)
[Codethink limited]: http://www.codethink.co.uk/
[Baserock wiki]: http://wiki.baserock.org/
[Baserock team]: http://wiki.baserock.org/team/
[Square Pyramid]: http://wiki.baserock.org/releases/square-pyramid/
[Git repositories]: http://git.baserock.org/cgit/
[IRC Channel]: http://wiki.baserock.org/irc-channel/
[mailing list]: http://wiki.baserock.org/mailinglist/
[announcements]: http://wiki.baserock.org/mailinglist/
[quick start]: http://wiki.baserock.org/quick-start/
[developing with Baserock]: http://wiki.baserock.org/devel-with/
[bug reporting guidelines]: http://wiki.baserock.org/bug-reporting/
10 years, 11 months