Hi Also, the 2GB is a requirement for running graphics. This is not even necessary for notebook testing. You can install 1GB virtual machines and stop the GUI on them.
Regards, Jan On 29 August 2012 09:46, Burcin Erocal <bur...@erocal.org> wrote: > On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:05:56 +0000 > Jan Groenewald <j...@aims.ac.za> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > On 29 August 2012 06:38, David Kirkby <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > > > > > On 28 August 2012 20:55, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > See the exchange below. I'm curious if there is anybody reading > > > > this who would want to manage a bunch of Virtualbox VM's, if we > > > > had a server *devoted* solely to running them, all for making > > > > Sage build in a much wider range of distros. This would take a > > > > person with a very particular set of skills and interests... in > > > > like maybe installing the top 10 linux distros or something like > > > > that. > > > > > > > > -- William > > > > > > It sounds an awlful job. > > > > > > Realistically to do it properly, there should be VMs for not just > > > the latest version, but older versions too. Perhaps up to say two > > > years old. Also one should really look at installing beta versions > > > of the OS, so we know in advance if the next version of > > > $some_distribution is going to cause a problem. So for 10 > > > distributions, that's probably 50 or so virtual machines. If each > > > was given 6 GB RAM, which is not an unreasonable amount, that would > > > amount to 300 GB of RAM for just virtual machines. > > > > > > If you only restrict yourself to the latest version of the operating > > > system, then it seems you wont catch the problems that people have, > > > as a lot of the Linux issues seem to be a result of there being > > > little or no attention paid to backwards compatibility with Linux. > > > > > > That seems like a LOT of work to do properly, and if not done > > > properly, you are probaby wasting your time. > > > > > > > > I'm not sure I understand completely. My back-of-the-envelope > > calculation came out > > an order of magnitude differently. > > > > Two Gigabytes is sufficient for each for RAM. Ubuntu has six > > supported and development > > versions > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubuntu_releases#Table_of_versions, > > while > > Debian has 3 supported versions (including one development) > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#Release_history. I guess similarly > > (around 4 average, that is 3 releases > > and one development version) for each of > > Redhat+Fedora+ScientificLinux, also for Gentoo, > > and also for Suse. That's a good spread and might require four > > volunteers (1 for apt, > > 1 for 3xrpm, 1 for gentoo/emerge, 1 for suse/yast). That multiplies > > to less than 64G, > > which is what is available. > > From my experience, this is a perfectly reasonable calculation. I run 6 > virtual machines on my workstation with 16 GB RAM for testing lmonade. > I can even use that machine for web browsing and emails when the > virtual machines are busy. > > It is possible to script the creation of virtual machines: > > https://launchpad.net/vmbuilder > > http://wiki.debian.org/VMBuilder > > Buildbot support starting and stopping a virtual machine before sending > a task to the slave: > > > http://buildbot.net/buildbot/docs/current/manual/cfg-buildslaves.html#latent-buildslaves > > So in theory, many more virtual machines can be hosted on the same > machine and started automatically when needed. > > > BTW, it would be great to have a large enough SSD on the machine and > use partitions on this disk directly on the virtual machines. Besides > using a ramdisk, I don't think there is any other way to get reasonable > build/disk performance out of virtual machines. > > > The four (or six) volunteers are presumably adept at installing a > > machine, adding > > buildbot_slave and auto updates, and repsonding every few months to an > > anomaly. > > > > I could be missing something. I'm half volunteering for the > > Debian/Ubuntu, because > > I imagine I can get them up in a weekend and hardly touch them after > > that. > > I would be willing to help with the configuration of the whole system > and I can try to come up with scripts to create a simple gentoo > server install. > > > Would it be possible to use these virtual machines to test lmonade as > well? > > > Cheers, > Burcin > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel?hl=en. > > > -- .~. /V\ Jan Groenewald /( )\ www.aims.ac.za ^^-^^ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel?hl=en.
