archlinux-devstack

The name of this project was "ArchLinux Development Stack" or archlinux-devstack for short and is now ArchServer ALM Stack (or almstack for short). It can be found under the umbrella of ArchServer. Further additions can be found in my github.com account at Github.

For a short description of the first release of the ALM Stack, take a look on javafreedom.org.

Quite a long time, there seem to be no real news on this project. Let me tell you, we are not lost in code but we are currently still working on our first live CD. The Live CD will be based on the latest ArchISO (which can be found on http://github.com/svenstaro/archiso-lglive). We have had some real issues using the ArchIso stuff from archlinux.org due to their shift to this new IsoLinux stuff, and this change is not really put into all the components (it is done in mkarchiso, but not in the config of archiso itself :-().

We are going now to provide a Live CD of ArchServer beforehand, and after this, a live cd with the full development stack will be done as well. Therefor do expect this Live CD on the end of this year or on the beginning of next year (hey, this is already up the day after tomorrow).

We are still in need of a place where we can put this image. Do you know something? Do you have a mirror for this available? Do you have any feedback or ideas for this project? Come and join us :-)

Today I googled quite a bit, to find competitors to this project. Basically what I learned, is, that there really is one, named Buildix. This one, I knew already quite some time, so nothing new there. It provides basically the same featureset as we, but using different tools. Buildix does not taking care about Quality Management and Build Management, like we do with Sonar and the recommendation for Maven.

I also learned some more details about ALM, which seems to be the Buzzword behind the stack, we are building in the ArchLinux Development Stack. Of course, ALM provides some more stuff then just the toolkit to develop Software, it is also (or even mainly) about processes and the full lifecycle of a software project. In this area, we are right now in heavy competition to companies like Polarion or Collabnet, the guys behind Sourceforge.

Other competitors do include GitHub (GitHub:FI) and probably Gitorious, which uses Git as the Version Control System.

But since we are fully OpenSource, we hope, that we get our userbase as well. One of the Unique Selling Points of our project is also the Git-usage, which is not often seen in this area right now, but this will probably come sooner or later. I do think, that we are on the right track, and will provide some unique integrations (e.g. Redmine Integration with Eclipse using the Mylyn connector) in the ALM field. Furtheremore the Sonar usage is quite unique right now as well. And we hope to integrate Maven 3 asap as well. So the whole stack is very Java centric, but since this is one of the most often used language in enterprise land, I do hope, that this provides some interest for our project as well.

ArchLinux is not one of the Distros used often in enterprise environments, but since we are going to provide Images for Virtual Machines (e.g. Virtualbox) we hope that this is not going to hurt us. Furthermore, we are already in contact to the guys from ArchServer, so that we can provide our packages based on a "stable" enterprise-friendly system.

Last week, I got an offer from a Fliehe & Schwab IT Solutions, a small hoster here in Germany. They offer us some server space using ArchLinux. With this solution, we could "eat our own dogfood". I believe that this leads into the right direction, only concern right now is the price, which is a real good offer, but not a penny as well.

So, if you are interested in this project, come and join us. Come, join this project and help us, to make this effort a success for all of us.

The startup script was edited, now it should start and stop redmine correctly. Furthermore we have also added the live-iso-directory to the repository. This is a first step in the direction of our own ISO.

We are still in need of help, so if you are interested, do not hesitate, just write an email or provide feedback.

The Redmine package is now updated. We have now no more dependency to SVN. Since the target of this stack is a full development stack using Git, this is a good step into the right direction. And hey, 0.9 of redmine is coming soon, and we will not only provide a up-to-date version, but also the stable 0.9-version :-)

We have tagged this release 0.3.1.

As of now, the latest version of Sonar (1.12) is used in the sonar package. This new version also fixes a problem with the JAVA_HOME variable setting during the startup of Sonar. For more information on the latest version, please see the Sonar Homepage.

Version 0.4 was initially thought of as a release for a major integration of all the included packages. This Goal is shifted. The new goal is now to provide a first ISO of the whole stack, to gather some experiences with this and furthermore to gather more participants for this project.
We think, that with an ISO the hurdle to get involved in this project is lower, therefore the change of the Goal.

So, if you would like to participate, provide feedback, or just be a "customer" of this project, please send us an email :-)

Yesterday we started with the development of an ISO for a LIVE CD. The first version will be a clone of the Arch Live CD (with installer) plus the packages of our Stack. Please be prepared to have some issues with this CD.

We are not going to put all of the wished packages into the first version, but it should give a nice overview, of what is to come.

We are still looking for a Hosting environment for this ISO, so if you would like to host it on your page, please send an email to us.

We have now published a new Redmine Theme. This Theme can be downloaded on the "Files"-Page. If you would like to report any errors, please open an Issue. The Theme is already published on the Redmine page under the ArchLinux Theme.

We have now released version 0.3 of the ArchLinux Development Stack. This version contains the following packages:

• nexus
• hudson
• sonar
• redmine
• gitauth

and also

• http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=14624

We have removed the old packages java-nexus, java-hudson and java-sonar.

If you have any feedback, please provide it via this page or on the corresponding AUR-pages. Thanks for the support.