PointReleaseProcess

Revision 4 as of 2008-01-16 15:50:08

Clear message

This is an incomplete DRAFT.

To be carried out by: nominated stable release manager, with support from the [https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-sru stable release updates] and [https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-release release teams]

Goals:

  • Refresh hardware support in LTS releases for carefully-selected hardware
  • Roll up accumulated stable updates into updated images to reduce download requirements for new deployments
  • Maintain stability of existing installations

Planning stages, for LTS point releases:

  1. Discuss candidates for new or improved hardware support with affected parties, including the Canonical support team (via Steve George) and the Ubuntu kernel team.
  2. Establish a hit-list of bugs to fix in the point release.
  3. In concert with affected developers, triage the hit-list for feasibility.
  4. Discuss the possibility of a Canonical press release for the point release with Gerry Carr.
  5. Liaise with IS, QA, and certification to arrange for testing resources.

Process stable release updates [:StableReleaseUpdates:as normal]. Once an acceptable number of bugs is believed to be fixed, start building test CD images:

  1. Upload a new base-files package to -proposed to bump the lsb_release version number ([http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/b/base-files/base-files_3.1.9ubuntu7.2/changelog example for 6.06.2]).

  2. If the kernel or associated modules has been changed, upload debian-installer after all the binaries are in place. If the ABI changed, make sure to take account of this throughout debian-installer/build/config/ and in the installer seed for all flavours being built.

  3. Change cdimage/bin/make-web-indices, cdimage/bin/publish-release, and debian-cd/CONF.sh to use the new release version number.

  4. Change cdimage/bin/run-germinate and debian-cd/CONF.sh to build from -proposed temporarily. If live CDs need to be built, also modify cdimage/bin/buildlive.

  5. Build CD images (which will be published and smoke-test in some convenient environment to check for obvious failures.
  6. Contact IS, QA, and/or certification as appropriate to request testing.
  7. Once testing is verified to be complete, release images as final, and move the previous images to old-releases.ubuntu.com:

    • Prepublish images:

      DIST=dapper ARCHES="i386 amd64 sparc powerpc" for-project ubuntu publish-release ubuntu-server/daily 20080110.1 server poolonly (similar for alternates, desktops, etc.)

    • TODO much more detail here
  8. File a bug on [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-website/+bugs ubuntu-website] to have https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes updated.

TODO:

  • Anything else?