SeedManagement

Seed Management

Seeds are the lists of packages we want to include in the distribution. We have three primary seeds, base, desktop and supported that define what goes into the archive's main component. base and desktop along with the ship seeds go onto our CDs and the supported packages are available from the FTP site.

Seeding a package pulls all of its dependencies into the appropriate part of the archive and ensures everything needed to build that package is at least placed in supported.

Proposals for adding new packages to the seeds should be sent to the ubuntu-devel mailing list.

StuartBishop -- eh? below I'm told to use the wiki pages.

To get a checked-out copy of the seeds that you can edit, if you have a chinstrap account:

baz register-archive sftp://chinstrap/home/warthogs/archives/[email protected]
baz get [email protected]/seeds--breezy--0

If you don't have a chinstrap account, then a public mirror is here:

baz register-archive http://people.ubuntu.com/~cjwatson/[email protected]
baz get [email protected]/seeds--breezy--0

(If you don't have baz, you can also use tla.)

For the Kubuntu seeds replace ubuntu-devel with kubuntu-devel in the command above.

Before making any changes you should set your umask to 002 to ensure the changes are committed group writable.

You can view the current seeds [http://people.ubuntu.com/~cjwatson/seeds/ here].

Germinate, the program that processes seeds and expands out their dependencies, is also available in arch:

baz register-archive http://people.ubuntu.com/~cjwatson/archives/[email protected]
baz get [email protected]/germinate--mainline--0

The Seeds

Base

The base system provides a solid foundation for a desktop or server without providing X11 or any services listening on any non-localhost ports. This seed package list, once the complete dependency set has been added, provides that system.

Packages in base should be:

• absolutely stable, standard tools that we think will be around forever and we are prepared to maintain even if the whole world moves on
• useful diagnostic tools that one can use to get the system and network up and running, and are valuable to have "always there" in case of need
• widely applicable (in the Greatest Common Factor sense, not Lowest Common Denominator) to every installation, desktop or server

A "base" system is not expected to be useful for any particular purpose. It's simply the minimal working system that we will support. It should be a platform that one can quickly get working, and on top of which one can construct a useful collection of services. Typically, servers would start out life as a "base" system, and the system administrator would then add specific services and packages as needed.

The raw base seed list for the [obsoleted by HoaryHedgehog / HoaryGoals] release can be found here: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~cjwatson/seeds/hoary/base

Changes to the base seed can be proposed on the BaseSeedProposals page

Desktop

The Desktop seed, minimally summarised, ought to be a checklist of desktop features that would appeal to a user or procurer. Our default Desktop install should include every single package mentioned in the Desktop seed. Thus, the seed should be as simple as possible without being too simple, and be directly focused on solving desktop problems.

[ One of the valuable design choices in Debian is that if you install a daemon, it is assumed that you intend to use it. If you don't want to run it, don't install it. Requiring that a daemon be installed but not wanting to run it is a rarely-by-few use case, so Debian doesn't optimise for it. Rightly so. We ought to look at our Desktop seed in a similar light. If we put it on the list, it should be installed. If we install it, assume that it will be used. In some cases, this will be "running by default", but in most cases on the desktop, it just means "available or visible by default". ]

We should not confuse the Desktop seed with "what's on the CD", because we can always fill the remaining space on the CD with high priority items. Similarly, we should not put important things that are independent of our desktop solution in the Desktop seed, as this will adversely affect our focus. Major distro features that are not Desktop oriented should have their own sections on the Supported seed page.

The raw desktop seed list for the [obsoleted by HoaryHedgehog / HoaryGoals] release can be found here: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~cjwatson/seeds/hoary/desktop

Changes to the desktop seed can be proposed on the DesktopSeedProposals page

Supported

The supported system provides functionality not included by the base or desktop systems but which meets the following criteria:

1. it is very widely used, people are committed to it.
2. it is not architecturally insecure, it is thus easy for us to provide security fixes and updates.

This list would include popular servers other than the ones we include in a Base or Desktop install; additional desktop software; and a build environment. It is never expected that someone would install the entire Supported list of packages, they would choose specific packages that provide specific needed functionality.

This list is all the extra packages we think need to be supported in our distro. We will accept contributions of additional packages into this list, if they:

1. have an external maintainer who agrees to maintain them to our standard, in ["Arch"], using ["Soyuz"]

2. pass a one-time security review from MattZimmerman and agree to be responsive to him on SecurityPage issues

Some packages in this list will also ship on the CD, subject to the amount of space we have on the CD. They would typically be cached on the installed hard drive for rapid installation without the CD. All of these packages will be available in the online archive of packages.

The raw Supported seed list for the [obsoleted by HoaryHedgehog / HoaryGoals] release can be found here: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~cjwatson/seeds/hoary/supported

Changes to the Supported seed can be proposed on the SupportedSeedProposals page

Extra

Binary packages which are built by a supported source package, but not supported themselves, are automatically added to a special "extra" list.

Installer

The installer seed tracks packages which are part of the installer

Ship

Packages which will be included on the CD for convenience, but are not part of the default set of packages to install. Common examples include:

• Utilities which might be necessary in some cases in order to connect to a network
• Common server applications

The raw Ship seed list for the [obsoleted by HoaryHedgehog / HoaryGoals] release can be found here: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~cjwatson/seeds/hoary/ship

Changes to the Ship seed can be proposed on the ShipSeedProposals page

Live

Software which will be installed on the Ubuntu LiveCD, in addition to the default desktop set.

The raw Live seed list for the [obsoleted by HoaryHedgehog / HoaryGoals] release can be found here: http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~cjwatson/seeds/hoary/live

Changes to the Live seed can be proposed on the LiveSeedProposals page

How the Seeds are Used

• The installation CD contains the software in the Base, Desktop, Installer and Ship seeds (and its dependencies)
• The installation DVD contains the software in the Base, Desktop, Installer, Ship and Supported seeds (and its dependencies)
• The live CD contains the software in the Base, Desktop and Live seeds (and its dependencies)