Matthew Summers wrote:
Hi,
I have a few suggestions regarding this major change to Gentoo systems.
1. We should determine and then announce the precise date (appears to
be in May) and time that baselayout-2 will be stabilized via:
1.1 A front page News item on www.g.o (PR team assemble!),
1.2 The main MLs (gentoo-announce, gentoo-users, etc),
1.3 Add a link to the www news item to /topic in #gentoo, and
1.4 Post a sticky topic in the Forum.
all in addition to the eselect news item under discussion here. The
above would link to the migration guide too.
The rationale for this effort at getting the word out is to prevent
users from hosing their system(s). While I tend to agree that users
should read these eselect news items, its often not the case.
Therefore I recommend shooting for the widest possible distribution of
this information. Also, this gives PR a chance to let the world know
about openrc and its benefits to Gentoo.
2. We should prepare a quick "recover-your-system" guide (could also
create a script too) that can be quickly linked to for user support.
This will save time for people providing support via IRC, email, etc,
and give people a reasonable means of system recovery without huge
pain.
3. Update the handbook to reflect these changes as soon as possible,
and have that all go public simultaneously with the stabilization.
4. I have attached an edited and unfinished version of the original
news item for review. I attempted to be succinct.
This is a really exciting and potentially also rather
anxiety-provoking change for our user base and Gentoo. We all know
that the new baselayout is awesome, and users will find out soon
enough. We simply need to make our best effort at easing the
transition so we minimize the number of casualties.
Thank you,
Matt
I wouldn't mind seeing this on the main Gentoo page as soon as
possible. Some people may not visit the Gentoo page very often, I'm one
of those. This could be done even if it has to be changed as things
update. Maybe one that it is coming and one a few days before it hits
stable in the tree.
+1 on this being a good idea. This is a really important update since
it can cause a system to be unbootable. I'm thinking about folks that
may admin a box remotely too.
If all the above is done and people miss that it is coming, I think it
could safely be said that everything that could be done was done to
inform people. The list above includes about every means of
communication Gentoo has.
Great post.
Dale
:-) :-)
