[cvsnt] Proposed CVSNT Setup - Looking for Feedback

[Dianne Chen]

Hi-

I am heading up an activity to introduce Version
Control/Configuration Management into a firmware
engineering environment. I have quite a few years
experience with CM (specifically, Clearcase at several
different companies) and sw process improvement
activites as well. I am looking for some feedback on a
system I'd like to propose to management for
"go-ahead" approval.

Given:
----------
* Small company, making products with embedded
firmware
* Typical firmware project fits within 32K part  :)
* ~20 firmware developers - frequent usage of VC,
mostly text files, some binary files
* Potential to add 10 electrical designers (storage of
schematics, BOMs, etc.) - infrequent VC usage, mostly
binary files, some text
* Potential to add maybe 10 managers at later date
(storage of Project Plans, SCMP, schedules, etc.) -
infrequent VC usage, mostly binary files
* Windows-centric operation, but open to other OSs
* Open source solution to CM/VC preferred


Proposal
--------------

Server:
HW: 3.2Ghz PC, ~250G RAID, 1G of RAM
SW: Linux, CVSNT, CVSNotify, Apache, Activestate perl,
Python, Bugzilla, CVSZilla

Clients
HW: (existing PCs running WinXP)
SW: WinCVS, Winmerge, ExamDiff Pro



Questions:

1) Is the server spec'd appropriately for the intended
usage/community? I was unable to find any
configuration recommendations.
2) Does the community have any recommendations on
flavor of Linux? Does the community have first-hand
knowledge of what to use vs. what to avoid, what took
more work to get running, etc.
3) For a reasonable first-pass at tools, does the
proposed set  look usable/complete? What developer
VC-activities are not covered by the above tools?
4) Of specific concern, can I propose a Linux
Server/Winxp client split as shown above and have
those tools play together well?
5) Am I correct that one should limit the activities
occurring on the CVS server? Does that mean it should
*only* do cvs functions and nothing more? What have
others "gotten away with" doing on their cvs servers
and at what cost?
6) How do others handle builds? Do all builds occur on
client machines? Do some make use of build servers? In
my previous experiences with Clearcase, we used CM
servers AND build servers, but those were for some
pretty big products.
7) If builds occur on client machines, does that mean
in order to use "make", everyone has Cygwin installed
on all of their PCs?

Much, much thanks for any opinions and dissension. It
is appreciated.

DC




		
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