[ovirt-users] Ubuntu/Debian support?

[Yedidyah Bar David]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Itamar Heim" <iheim at redhat.com>
> To: users at ovirt.org
> Sent: Monday, November 17, 2014 9:41:32 AM
> Subject: [ovirt-users] Ubuntu/Debian support?
> 
> So, a quick non-scientific poll...
> 
> Motivation: It has been suggested that adding ubuntu or debian distro
> support could broaden the reach of the oVirt community.
> To date, there has been some work towards this goal, but it is not
> "coming to a conclusion".
> 
> Questions that comes to mind:
> 
> 1) Is this still an issue?

Define "issue". iow, define what our goal is. If it's "make it possible
to easily run ovirt on debian", that's one thing, perhaps easily achieved
by your points 4-5 below. If it's "have ovirt packaged inside the Debian
archive" that's a considerably different issue.
I think we should aim for the latter, the former is a start.

> 2) Can we afford to dilute the focus we have as it is hard enough to
>     stabilize the currently supported distro's? is it worth the
>     potential impact?

imho yes. I agree with the other replies already posted.

> 3) Would it have maintainers catering to it so it won't be left behind
>     / delay development?

For Debian, generally speaking, it's up to us to support. AFAIK almost
all Debian developers are volunteers, and do whatever they find interesting
or need for their own use. So we should either try to contact existing
such developers dealing with virtualisation-related packages there and see
how interested they are in ovirt, or try to do this on our own. To get
things into the archive you do not necessarily need to be a developer
yourself, they have a system of mentors etc. for that.

For Ubuntu, if Canonical is interested, they are of course more than welcome
to help! This will obviously help also Debian, although AFAIK not necessarily
every package that is accepted to the Ubuntu archive is automatically or
easily accepted to Debian's.

> 4) Why bother with host support, ovirt-node can be used?

As long as we see value in developing and supporting hosts based on
el/fedora, this value also exists for Debian-based hosts. If we decide
one day to support only ovirt-node, it's not as important what distro
it's based on.

> 5) Why bother with engine support, a virtual appliance or a docker
>     image could be used?

Because many users will find it a higher barrier to implement, for
various reasons.

> 6) if we do it, should we focus on Ubuntu or Debian distro first?

IMO Debian, I agree with other replies already posted.

> 7) if we do it, should we focus on host or engine first?

Not sure I can see a strong preference for one of them.

I'd like to add my own question, since none of the replies so far
replied to it:

8. Do we have here existing users that are interested in
this? If it worked equally well, would you (re?)install on Debian?

Because if the answer is 'No', we might be discussing this on the
wrong list, and better approach Debian lists/forums/etc.
-- 
Didi