Today we had the NixOS 24.11 retrospective. To sum it up, the release went well but we could’ve used a longer beta phase and have more hardware for ZHF.
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@RossComputerGuy: delays
- Long delay due to netrc regression was inconvenient
- Faster staging cycle
- Release the beta earlier (like a month to get a couple staging cycles)
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@tomberek: in previous years we scaled up compute during release stabilization, we should do that again
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@RossComputerGuy: release wiki doesn’t have docs on it, we should add that
- week or two before ZHF, we should probably scale it up
- make sure it’s in the release wiki
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@tomberek: timeline and schedule retrospective
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@RossComputerGuy: second to last week of month was nice for release because netrc bug happened
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@tomberek: more callouts would help to keep people apprised of schedule
- more people involved in testing
- add something in the wiki about collaboration with marketing team for more awareness
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@tomberek: were there skillsets in short supply, or successes to toss a thank you to?
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@RossComputerGuy: Darwin rewrite was really helpful
- more unified approach, less maintenance
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@numinit: how much ZHF burndown did we have?
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@pyrox (chat): from 6854 to 4339 failing packages
- aarch64-darwin: 1541 → 1153
- aarch64-linux: 1554 → 666
- x86_64-darwin: 1701 → 1362
- x86_64-linux: 2058 → 1158
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@RossComputerGuy: more participation in ZHF would help from people with huge machines
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@tomberek: we should use nix-community builders too
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@pyrox: maybe we should talk to providers like Garnix about helping out
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@numinit: “all hands on deck” approach for a release
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@pyrox: publicity incentive for providers helping us to get it across this line
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@RossComputerGuy: companies helping out with providing hardware for releases would be useful
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@pyrox: sponsored hardware decreases financial load on the Foundation
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@RossComputerGuy: challenges
- Didn’t have enough time for certain things, could have used even more people helping with ZHF, more testing in PRs
- Had to push staging around, having more resources would help
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@numinit: having to pick and choose which package updates would be realistic for 24.11, though that happens every release
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@RossComputerGuy: longer beta provides a bigger window to get things done
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@numinit: usual aarch64 package issues
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@RossComputerGuy: they’ll go down over time as more package configurations are tested
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@RossComputerGuy: future improvements
- Getting ARM NixOS releases more easily installable will result in more testing
- Better install images for different platforms, but possibly a lot of the due to ARM fragmentation
- Better docs on ARM stuff since it’s outdated. Make stuff more current.
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@RossComputerGuy: process or tool upgrades needed?
- expanding Hydra
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@pyrox: making sure there are enough ARM builders to keep up with the community
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@RossComputerGuy: infra team is working on it, probably needs more of a push to get enough aarch64 builder capacity
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@RossComputerGuy: release editors have anything to say?
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@GetPsyched: things were smooth, wiki team collaboration was pretty last minute
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@getchoo: things were smooth except reaching out to the wiki team could be improved and getting the release notes cleaned up could be faster
- Release notes getting merged without commit bit was rough
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@RossComputerGuy: bother someone with a commit bit to get it done
- post link on Matrix so it’s easier to see
Thank you @numinit for keeping track of the notes.
