[OpenStack-docs] Rebooting Debian support in the install-guide

Thomas Goirand zigo at debian.org
Sat May 7 09:15:19 UTC 2016


Hi,

During the Austin summit, I could discuss with Lana about what could be
done for the Debian support in the install-guide.

Currently, there's these facts:
- The Debconf support adds lots of conditionals which aren't easy to
support (ie: it makes the individual foo-install.rst more complicated).
- Some people would prefer to document the non-interactive mode.
- Some people (like me) would still prefer to keep supporting using
Debconf during the installation.

As a consequence, we believe the most easy way forward is as follow:
- Keep Debian support directly in the install-guide.
- Remove conditionals for Debian using Debconf in the foo-install.rst
files, and document there the DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive mode.
- Push Debconf support in separate foo-debconf-install.rst files, and
use them to generate the install-guide instead of the normal files.

This means that effectively, we'd have 2 install-guide for Debian, and
not one anymore. Though the non-interactive one would be very close from
the Ubuntu one, and wouldn't add much work.

The chapter explaining how Debconf works will have to be written in 2
versions, one explaining generalities about Debconf, for the
Debconf-supporting install-guide, and one explaining how to switch to
the non-interactive mode (ie: using DEBIAN_FRONTEND= or doing
dpkg-reconfigure debconf).

I hope this solution will satisfy everyone.

Going forward, to make this happen, I would need that the Debian install
guide gets published again. I am currently not sure how to make this
happen (ie: what kind of patch is needed?). I have made this patch:
https://review.openstack.org/313854 but is this enough to get the guide
in docs.openstack.org? Also, what would be needed to get a guide with
debiandebconf tag?

Thoughts anyone?

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)



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