Mailing List Archive

Sebastian Pipping posted on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:40:03 +0200 as excerpted:


> Just a quick update: the first report table on installed packages just
> arrived. Have a look here:
>
> http://smolt.hartwork.org:45678/static/stats/
gentoo.html#installed_packages_most_installed_world

FWIW, It'd be useful to know about @system packages as well, particularly
portage, I'd guess, and there's likely others. AFAIK smolt depends on
portage ATM, but the particular versions installed and percentage for
each could be /very/ helpful as more people run smolt.

Also, it obviously doesn't matter much this early in the game, but as
time goes on, getting a snapshot of responses per month and quarter could
be useful.

And is there an anonymous ID number or other means taken to ensure that a
user that reports daily is going to refresh his own stats, but not crowd
out the guy reporting monthly or quarterly? (My apologies if I missed
discussion of this earlier; I wasn't paying too much attention to the
finer details.) How often /should/ we update? Every time we sync and
finish our routine updates? Only once a quarter?

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

On Wednesday 19 August 2009, Duncan wrote:
> FWIW, It'd be useful to know about @system packages as well,
> particularly portage, I'd guess, and there's likely others. AFAIK
> smolt depends on portage ATM, but the particular versions installed
> and percentage for each could be /very/ helpful as more people run
> smolt.

There's definately interesting numbers in the packages people have
installed that are not in the world file. Judging from the page
Sebastian prepared a table "Non-world-file packages", which can
list "other" ebuilds. The table cannot list all packages anyone has
installed, but maybe a selected number of ebuilds. Another interface
(query form, sql export, or regular custom reports) could then allow
maintainers to query for specific packages or combinations.


> And is there an anonymous ID number or other means taken to ensure
> that a user that reports daily is going to refresh his own stats, but
> not crowd out the guy reporting monthly or quarterly?

Yes, the client associates its submits with a uuid it stores locally,
and the server will update the client's profile (deleting the old
data).

> How often /should/ we update?
> Every time we sync and finish our routine updates? Only once a
> quarter?

Fedora (where Smolt originated) recommends people to submit once a month
using a cron entry. But that was back when Smolt only supported
Hardware and OS statistics (that change less often). Maybe a weekly
schedule is more appropriate in Gentoo? I think the Fedora people will
kill us though for the increased server load as they run the official
receiving server (they currently have 100 000 people submitting each
month).


Robert

Robert Buchholz posted on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:02:47 +0200 as excerpted:

>> How often /should/ we update? Every time we sync and finish our
>> routine updates? Only once a quarter?
>
> Fedora (where Smolt originated) recommends people to submit once a month
> using a cron entry. But that was back when Smolt only supported Hardware
> and OS statistics (that change less often). Maybe a weekly schedule is
> more appropriate in Gentoo? I think the Fedora people will kill us
> though for the increased server load as they run the official receiving
> server (they currently have 100 000 people submitting each month).

So once a month is good, up to once a week, perhaps, but in any event,
it's probably of little value to do it more often than one syncs, and if
one syncs daily, or even the couple times a week I try to do, that's
probably more often than the server is likely prepared to accept, just as
users are urged not to sync more often than once a day, with Gentoo.

I haven't installed this yet. I should...

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

Duncan wrote:
> I haven't installed this yet. I should...

by now there's a

gentoo-smolt-9999 ebuild

in the sping overlay to ease things up a bit.



sebastian