Subject: [alpine-devel] Plans for Alpine Linux 3.0 with musl libc

From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 10:32:26 +0100

Hi,

We are planning to do an Alpine Linux release 3.0 in May 2014. With
this release we will switch to musl libc instead of uclibc.

Here are the plans we have for this:

* Set up builder for musl libc package. This is done already but needs
  to finish automation bits. Packages are available from 'edge-musl'
  repository for now.

* Rename 'edge-musl' to 'edge'. At this point all edge users will need
  do full reinstall (apk upgrade -U -a or similar). There are already
  tests done for this so I don't think it will cause too much pain.
  http://kaniini.dereferenced.org/2014/03/23/upgrading-to-alpine-musl.html

* Make alpha iso image with musl libc and test that installers etc works.

* Fix as many bugs as possible and make sure the remaining packages
  builds (or deprecate those who does not)

* Make release candidates.

* Make 3.0 release.

The 3.0 release can be considered 'beta' since this is a brand new libc
that has not been tested much, and will not get enough time for getting
tested thoroughly. Because of this we will most likely reduce the
support time for this release to maximum 1 year, and instead extend the
bugfixing period for v2.7.

We are also working on armhf support for this release and would like
some feedback on what boards people are interested in.

I would also like to say that so far the work with musl libc have been
surprisingly pleasant.

-nc

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From: Juan Francisco Cantero Hurtado <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 01:05:11 +0100

> some feedback on what boards people are interested in.

I'm interested in the BeagleBone Black. In my experience, the distros 
with the best support for this board are Fedora and Debian. You can use 
both as a reference for the kernel config.

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From: Timo Teras <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 09:20:01 +0200

On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 01:05:11 +0100
Juan Francisco Cantero Hurtado <[email-masked]> wrote:

> with the best support for this board are Fedora and Debian. You can
> use both as a reference for the kernel config.

Seems linux-3.13 has dts for it, so at least basic support should be
doable easily without kernel patching.

I have scripted things ready only for Raspberry Pi - but that's a bit
of an exception in arm world how things work.

I do have Wandboard Quad here as build box, and I have multiplatform
kernel for it, so just enabling beaglebone support on that kernel should
be enough.

However, that is not scripted yet. I would need to fix the kernel build
stuff to include dtbs and package u-boot + needed scripts for it. And
finally patch our setup-bootable (or write a specific script) to prepare
the arm images.

I'll look into this sometime near future.

- Timo

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 13:07:01 +0100

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 10:32:26 +0100

> this release we will switch to musl libc instead of uclibc.

...

> bugfixing period for v2.7.

Just to clarify, this means that there will be no 2.8 release and that
there might come more v2.7.x releases than normal.

-nc

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From: José Neto <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 15:45:26 -0300

Can you tell me if this will solve the samba problem[1]?

Thanks!

[1] http://www.uclibc.org/FAQ.html#needed_defs

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 22:19:20 +0100

> [1] http://www.uclibc.org/FAQ.html#needed_defs

no. it Will not solve the underlinking problem mentioned in the above link. and our readline should link directly to ncurses so we should not have the mentioned problem. if you get it, then please file an issue on bugs.alpinelinux.org

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