Hello Dev Team,
Im writing to inquire in regards to a stable release road map? Ive been pushing users to upgrade to Nighty builds here with in BAM / SFWEM every month. It not EZ to ask every one every month. I know that the DEV team has been busy with upgraded to mitigate the storms and UI improvements. Im hopping for comment on the path for a stable release. I hope that it could be first quarter 2022? I would appreciate a stable release in order to stop asking users upgrade to nighty builds every month, to keep the network stable!
Long Live AREDN!
73 & Happy New Year!
Mathison KJ6DZB
Rather than wear their patience thin, I would simply stop asking them to upgrade. The nightly builds are not to be considered for production devices anyway. I know a lot of hams routinely test nightlies for us, but I wouldn't if you need the network to work. Over the next couple months the risk of using a nightly will increase substantially as large rewritten modules of refactored Python code are included.
As for a production release glide path, we were hoping to wait until we had 802.11ac devices supported and a new production release of OpenWRT included. So we are at the mercy of their schedule. We are considering arguments for an interim release.
Having said this, we are always grateful for testing support from those who are able to do so.
Happy New Year, Mathison to you and the growing Bay area network.
Andre, K6AH.
Arguments for a interim release:
Alone I think the "routing storm" code fix would call for a STABLE release. Combine the UI improvements and the soon to come rewrite of the UI code. The need is all the more pressing for a STABLE release.
73 Mathison KJ6DZB
What are you referring to as "432 equipment"? I'm assuming 32MB, but I don't see how that translates to 432.
https://openwrt.org/supported_devices/432_warning
If we were voting (and I fully understand that we are not), but given the recent improvements to routing storms and the UI improvements on large networks on lower power devices, in addition to the fact that a larger refactoring / UI change / language change is starting / in the works, in my mind now would be the perfect time for a stable release. I'm not sure what the estimated timeline is for completing the UI changes, but I wouldn't think you would want to do a stable release in the middle of that effort, so I would speculate that the next good opportunity to release a stable firmware release is a good deal in the future.
I would echo that personally here at home, as well as on our small but growing network in Chicago, these nodes have been on the nightlies for testing purposes and because we have some lower resource nodes deployed at non-critical sites. I would like to get the critical sites that are currently on the stable firmware up to include the changes discussed above, as well as get the rest of the nodes off of the nightlies while the refactoring effort is taking place.
Thank you all for your reasoned comments. We will take them under advisement and let you know.
Andre, K6AH
Last night, the project core team agreed to put out a stable release preceding the introduction of major planned/in-process code changes. The timing for this is currently estimated at 3 weeks from now... Please remember we are an all volunteer group, so schedule slippage may occur.
Thanks for your input to this process.
Andre, K6AH
+1 with Jim K6CCC
Thank you! Appreciate all the effort you all put into the hobby.
Thank you!
Appreciate all the effort you all put into the hobby.