If you found a problem in your openSUSE system, and know how to fix it, it is very easy now to contribute the fix back to the project.

For example a user had a problem with a boot script erroneously overwriting a file at each system boot. As he already found out how to fix it, I can demonstrate how easy it is to contribute this fix back to the project, so that every openSUSE user can benefit from it.

At first I had to find out which package to fix. This can be done by asking the package management system which package owns the buggy file:

> rpm -qf /etc/init.d/boot.clock

aaa_base-11.2-43.45.1.i586

Now we create a branch of the package in the openSUSE buildservice:

> osc branch openSUSE:Factory aaa_base

Note: Please login to build.opensuse.org first to create your home project. The osc tool can be installed for openSUSE 11.2, 11.1.

The server created a copy of the package in your home project now.
You need to check it out to your local machine to do the changes:

osc co home:digitaltomm:branches:Base:System/aaa_base

You now have a directory 'home:digitaltomm:branches:Base:System/aaa_base' containing the package source files.

You can now either directly change the sources of the package or create a patch file that gets included from the .spec file. Creating a patch file is preferred for source changes, so that the patch can easily be removed when the upstream project has included the fix. Changes to the .spec file can be done directly.

Let's create a patch. This can be done manually with the patch command, or with the help of the quilt program.

I have to extract the source tarball, create a copy where I fix the code, and create the patch file by using diff to compare the original and the patched sources:

> cd home\:digitaltomm\:branches\:Base\:System/aaa_base
> tar -xf aaa_base.tar.bz2
> cp -r aaa_base aaa_base.orig
> vim aaa_base/etc/init.d/boot.clock
> diff -uNr aaa_base.orig aaa_base > adjtime.patch

Now the patch file needs to be referenced from the .spec file. This is done by adding a reference like this:

Source: aaa_base.tar.bz2
Patch0: adjtime.patch
...
%prep
%setup -n aaa_base
%patch0 -p1

To make sure the patch is applied correctly, and the package builds on openSUSE Factory, I start a local build:

> osc build --no-verify

When everything went fine, I can commit the changes to my branch, add a changelog entry and afterwards submit a request to get the changes included in the openSUSE Factory project:

> osc commit -m "Added adjtime fix from bnc#570245."
> osc vc
> osc submitreq -m 'Added adjtime fix from bnc#570245'
created request id 29474

The request is now pending and waiting to get reviewed by the project maintainers of openSUSE Factory. It's state can be viewed with:

> osc request show 29474

or in the webinterface.

In my case the request got declined because Rudi was faster in fixing it, and I forgot to add a correct changelog entry first.

The openSUSE Buildservice will be released with version 1.7 soon next year. We are already building beta packages in the openSUSE:Tools:Unstable project.

I started to build appliances for the OBS with SUSE Studio now:

• openSUSE Buildservice + Desktop (1.7 beta1):
  Contains the obs backend server, worker, the API, the webui, an IceWM desktop and OSC and firefox to directly use it.
  Virtualbox + VMWare image (1.4 GB),
  Live CD image (292 MB),
  Disk image (USB) (1.2 GB)
• openSUSE Buildservice Server (1.7 beta1):
  Contains the obs backend server, worker, and API and webui.
  Virtualbox + VMWare image (1.1 GB),
  Live CD image (181 MB),
  Disk image (USB) (808 MB)
• openSUSE Buildservice Worker (1.7 beta1):
  Only contains the obs worker that will try to connect to a backend discovered by slp.
  Virtualbox + VMWare image (872 MB),
  Live DVD image (137 MB),
  Disk image (USB) (555 MB)

Known issues:
- firefox does not start automatically in the desktop appliance

Please report issues with the beta packages / appliances to opensuse-buildservice@opensuse.org.

openSUSE 11.2 has been released today! Read more about the included updates, such as: KDE 4.3 Gnome 2.28 Kernel 2.6.31.5 translated download page

After upgrading my workstation to 11.2, I already have some workarounds for minor problems:

Tips & Tricks:

Mysql:
It seems the database did not run after upgrading from 11.1 to 11.2.
To fix it I did a: sudo zypper rm mysql; sudo zypper in mysql
Note: This was reported as bug #539148, and is caused by the '--skip-federated' option in /etc/my.cnf

Kde4 konsole:
My "Home" and "End" keys did not work. Go to Settings -> Manage profiles -> edit profile -> Set to "Default (XFree4)"

Privoxy:
Privoxy fails to start, because it is missing a config file. Fix:
sudo ln -s default.action /etc/privoxy/standard.action

X.org:
The X.org config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf is not needed anymore. I just moved it away.

Ideapad S12:
The Atom processor of the S12 seems to have a problem with the 11.2 kernel: It sleeps even if it should work ;-)
Solution: adding processor.max_cstate=1 to the kernel line of /boot/grub/menu.lst

This article explains how to setup all parts of the openSUSE buildservice. It will describe the needed steps to get it running with the latest sourcecode from svn, ready to use it and develop it.

If you just want to use the buildservice and are not interested in the latest code and it's development, it is recommended to simply use the openSUSE instance, or install it from rpm (howto for 11.0).

The buildservice consists of various parts, mainly the backend, the frontend (API), and different clients that connect to the API, we will set it up with the webclient.

At first we need to check out the buildservice code:

svn co https://forgesvn1.novell.com/svn/opensuse/trunk/buildservice

Setting up the backend:

We need to initialize the config file, add a buildservice user, and create the working directories:

cd src/backend
cp BSConfig.pm.template BSConfig.pm
sudo useradd obsrun -s /bin/false
sudo /usr/sbin/groupadd obsrun

sudo mkdir -p /srv/obs/run /srv/obs/projects
sudo chown -R obsrun /srv/obs/

This needs to be done as root or with sudo rights. To change the default directory or the user edit the BSConfig.pm file.

Now we are ready to start the servers. You should start each one in it's own terminal to see the logfiles.

sudo ./bs_srcserver sudo ./bs_repserver sudo ./bs_dispatch sudo mkdir /tmp/state sudo ./bs_worker --root /tmp/build --statedir /tmp/state

Setting up the frontend (API):

We can create a config file for the development machine, so we don't have to change the original one:

cd frontend; pushd config/environments; 
cp development_base.rb development.`hostname`.rb; 
popd;

Now we need to set up a database for the frontend, simply configure a database user in config/database.yml, crete the database and run:

rake db:migrate

now the database should be correctly initialized. Starting the API server with:

./script/server -p3001

makes it available at: http://127.0.0.1:3001. Using a browser on this address you can change some administrative stuff. The pre-configured admin user has the credentials: Admin:opensuse
The API documentation is now available here: http://127.0.0.1:3001/apidocs/
This API can now be used by different clients, or standard tools like curl (howto).

Setting up the webclient:

Setting up the weblient for usage with the openSUSE.org API is very easy, and explained in the wiki. To use it with our local frontend, we just need to change some config values:

cd webclient; pushd config/environments/; 
cp development_base.rb development.`hostname`.rb; 
popd;

and set:

FRONTEND_HOST = "localhost"
FRONTEND_PORT = 3001
FRONTEND_PROTOCOL = 'http'

Let's start it on default port 3000 with: ./script/server

Link your instance to the openSUSE.org buildservice

As our backend does not yet have any repositories we could build packages against, the easiest way to get started is to link it against the openSUSE buildservice, so we are able to build against all repositories from there. This is unfortunately not yet possible from the admin interface, so we have to use the API directly with curl:

curl -u Admin:opensuse -T opensuse_link 
http://localhost:3001/source/openSUSE.org/_meta

with opensuse_link being a file with this content: 

<project name="openSUSE.org" >
<title>openSUSE.org build link</title>
<description>Build against projects from build.opensuse.org</description>
<remoteurl>https://api.opensuse.org/public</remoteurl>
</project>

The linked project shown in the webclient

Now I want to create a project that builds against this repository, and build a package inside of it to show that everything is really working. For that, we create a home project for the admin user by clicking on "Home Project".

We need to use curl again to add a repository from the linked buildservice as a build target:

curl -u Admin:opensuse -T _meta 
http://localhost:3001/source/home:Admin/_meta

with _meta being a file with this content: 

<project name="home:Admin">
  <title>Admin's Home Project</title>
  <description></description>
  <repository name="openSUSE_11.1">
  <path project="openSUSE.org:openSUSE:11.1" repository="standard"/>
  <arch>i586
  </repository>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="Admin"/>
  <person role="bugowner" userid="Admin"/>
</project>

The project is now ready to build packages against the openSUSE 11.1 repository from the linked buildservice. We could now create new packages and upload the sources and .spec files, but I will just link a package from the openSUSE buildservice to build it unchanged.

YAY! After some time we can see that the first package was build by our local buildservice and the RPMs are ready!

Did you get interested in buildservice development, or did you run into some limitations that you want to fix? There also is a wiki page at: http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/Junior_Projects that lists some tasks that can be done.

The buildservice community can be found on irc at #opensuse-buildservice at freenode, and on opensuse-buildservice@opensuse.org (subscribe).

We added some public newsfeeds to hermes, the openSUSE notification system which is currently used for buildservice and openFATE messages.

• All buildservice source commits
• Buildservice source commits for openSUSE:Factory
• Buildservice build failures for openSUSE:Factory
• New packages created in the buildservice
• New projects created in the buildservice
• openFATE feature changes

If you have suggestions for other interesting feeds that should show up in the public feeds, please comment.