[LTP] [Automated-testing] [RFC PATCH 1/3] runltp: Deprecate, add info about kirk

[Cyril Hrubis]

Hi!
> > kirk is not perfect but already much better than old runltp script.
> > Let's deprecate runltp and propagate kirk.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Petr Vorel <pvorel@suse.cz>
> > ---
> >  runltp | 13 +++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)
> 
> I'd note that Yocto Project's CI is still using runltp and we have no
> recipe for kirk, or any experience of using it.

That's why runltp isn't going to disappear without a deprecation period,
the idea is to add the deprecation and wait a few releases before the
final removal, that in practical terms means at least a year, possibly
two for users to explore the replacement and give us feedback.

> This does therefore worry me a little bit, there appears to be a lot
> of complexity in kirk we don't need.

I would say that there is a complexity that you do not think that you
need but in reality you do. First of all the assumption that you can
have the test runner that keeps the results and overall state on the
same machine that runs the tests is the most flawed of them all. So
running the tests over some kind of connection is the basis design
principle of kirk. That allows us to easily and safely detect when we
crash kernels with our tests, which tend to happen more often than most
people think. And I can go about all the things that are there because
of a good reasons for hours.

That being said, the current kirk implementation ended up more complex
than I would like it, and that is something to improve over the
deprecation period. The general idea is to allow users to experiment
with kirk, even when it's not perfect to get feedback and ideally make
it usable for most usecases before we get rid of runltp for good.

-- 
Cyril Hrubis
chrubis@suse.cz