[U-Boot-Users] Revision control systems

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Jerry,

in message <4293794C.5020206 at smiths-aerospace.com> you wrote:
> 
> Are you still considering switching from CVS to a distributed version 
> control system?  The following is a pretty interesting summary of a few 
> of them:
> <http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/17319.html?thread=163751>

Yes, I am - thanks a lot for the pointer!

The fact that we're not further down  that  road  is  caused  by  two
issues:  lots  of  lack  of  time  on my side, and the changes of the
toolchain used for the Linux kernel.

At the moment I feel a tendency to follow the LInux  kernel  and  use
the  same  tool  chain,  too  -  as  I  don't have any clear personal
preferences yet (and not enough time to play around and develop such)
I think it is more important to chose ONE toolchain instead of  which
one.  However,  I still hope that when the dust settles there will be
some other solution but git. It's not really clear to me if Linux has
settled with git forever, or if it's only a  stepping  stone  on  the
way.

Comments and input welcome!

> With ARCH, my approach was to create a Sourceforge CVS -> ARCH master, 
> using ARCH to create changesets that tracked the Sourceforge CVS master 
> repository.  I then created a "local master" ARCH repository and applied 
> the "master master" patchsets to the "local master".  I've had some 
> problems tracking the master repository successfully.

Do you have something like a step-by-step description one could esily
follow, and especially a little more details about the  problems  you
mentioned?

> Monotone looks promising because Linus was considering using it and 
> because, according to the article, git closely resembles it.  If you're 
> going to grab a tiger tail, might as well grab the tail of the biggest 
> one ;-)  Monotone is designed to make multiple branches and multiple 
> heads easy to create and merge, which seems to be a good way to go for 
> tracking a master and simultaneously controlling local changes.  I don't 
> have enough time in on it to see how well it works in practice.

:-( I am _especially_ interested in practical usage information about
Monotone.

> DARC looks very promising for slaving off a master repository with local 
> changes.  I like the idea of being able to easily forward a changeset to 
> the Repository Master (you), and then, when it gets accepted, undo the 
> local changeset and apply the master changeset.  ARCH can be used this 
> way but DARC appears to be structured more for this type of usage with 
> its emphasis on independent commutable patches.  How well it works in 
> practice remains to be seen...

I have to admit that I didn't know much about darcs before. I'm under
the impression that monotone is still a  more  likely  candidate  for
being the Linux kernel tool of choice, or am I wrong?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
There are three ways to get something  done:  do  it  yourself,  hire
someone, or forbid your kids to do it.