Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil

Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek

Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!

Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.

For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.

No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)

The idea is testing Salt and Salt-ssh clients, but NOT traditional clients, which are deprecated.

To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):

1. Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
2. Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
3. Package management (install, remove, update...)
4. Patching
5. Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
6. Salt remote commands
7. Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
8. Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
9. Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
10. Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)

If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)

• If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
• If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.

This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)

Pending

Debian 13

The new version of the beloved Debian GNU/Linux OS

Seems to be a Debian 12 derivative, so adding it could be quite easy.

• [ ] Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
• W] Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap script, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
• [ ] Package management (install, remove, update...)
• [ ] Patching (if patch information is available, could require writing some code to parse it, but IIRC we have support for Ubuntu already). Probably not for Debian as IIRC we don't support patches yet.
• [ ] Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
• [ ] Salt remote commands
• [ ] Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
• [ ] Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
• [ ] Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)

Advent of Code: The Diaries by amanzini

Description

It was the Night Before Compile Time ...

Hackweek 25 (December 1-5) perfectly coincides with the first five days of Advent of Code 2025. This project will leverage this overlap to participate in the event in real-time.

To add a layer of challenge and exploration (in the true spirit of Hackweek), the puzzles will be solved using a non-mainstream, modern language like Ruby, D, Crystal, Gleam or Zig.

The primary project intent is not just simply to solve the puzzles, but to exercise result sharing and documentation. I'd create a public-facing repository documenting the process. This involves treating each day's puzzle as a mini-project: solving it, then documenting the solution with detailed write-ups, analysis of the language's performance and ergonomics, and visualizations.

                               |
                             \ ' /
                           -- (*) --
                              >*<
                             >0<@<
                            >>>@<<*
                           >@>*<0<<<
                          >*>>@<<<@<<
                         >@>>0<<<*<<@<
                        >*>>0<<@<<<@<<<
                       >@>>*<<@<>*<<0<*<
         \*/          >0>>*<<@<>0><<*<@<<
     ___\\U//___     >*>>@><0<<*>>@><*<0<<
     |\\ | | \\|    >@>>0<*<0>>@<<0<<<*<@<<
     | \\| | _(UU)_ >((*))_>0><*<0><@<<<0<*<
     |\ \| || / //||.*.*.*.|>>@<<*<<@>><0<<<
     |\\_|_|&&_// ||*.*.*.*|_\\db//_
     """"|'.'.'.|~~|.*.*.*|     ____|_
         |'.'.'.|   ^^^^^^|____|>>>>>>|
         ~~~~~~~~         '""""`------'
------------------------------------------------
This ASCII pic can be found at
https://asciiart.website/art/1831

Goals

Code, Docs, and Memes: An AoC Story

• Have fun!

• Involve more people, play together

• Solve Days 1-5: Successfully solve both parts of the Advent of Code 2025 puzzles for Days 1-5 using the chosen non-mainstream language.

• Daily Documentation & Language Review: Publish a detailed write-up for each day. This documentation will include the solution analysis, the chosen algorithm, and specific commentary on the language's ergonomics, performance, and standard library for the given task.

Background Coding Agent by mmanno

Description

I had only bad experiences with AI one-shots. However, monitoring agent work closely and interfering often did result in productivity gains.

Now, other companies are using agents in pipelines. That makes sense to me, just like CI, we want to offload work to pipelines: Our engineering teams are consistently slowed down by "toil": low-impact, repetitive maintenance tasks. A simple linter rule change, a dependency bump, rebasing patch-sets on top of newer releases or API deprecation requires dozens of manual PRs, draining time from feature development.

So far we have been writing deterministic, script-based automation for these tasks. And it turns out to be a common trap. These scripts are brittle, complex, and become a massive maintenance burden themselves.

Can we make prompts and workflows smart enough to succeed at background coding?

Goals

We will build a platform that allows engineers to execute complex code transformations using prompts.

By automating this toil, we accelerate large-scale migrations and allow teams to focus on high-value work.

Our platform will consist of three main components:

• "Change" Definition: Engineers will define a transformation as a simple, declarative manifest:
  
  • The target repositories.
    
  • A wrapper to run a "coding agent", e.g., "gemini-cli".
    
  • The task as a natural language prompt.
    
• "Change" Management Service: A central service that orchestrates the jobs. It will receive Change definitions and be responsible for the job lifecycle.
  
• Execution Runners: We could use existing sandboxed CI runners (like GitHub/GitLab runners) to execute each job or spawn a container.

MVP

• Define the Change manifest format.
  
• Build the core Management Service that can accept and queue a Change.
• Connect management service and runners, dynamically dispatch jobs to runners.
• Create a basic runner script that can run a hard-coded prompt against a test repo and open a PR.
  

Stretch Goals:

• Multi-layered approach, Workflow Agents trigger Coding Agents:
  
  1. Workflow Agent: Gather information about the task interactively from the user.
     
  2. Coding Agent: Once the interactive agent has refined the task into a clear prompt, it hands this prompt off to the "coding agent." This background agent is responsible for executing the task and producing the actual pull request.
     
• Use MCP:
  
  1. Workflow Agent gathers context information from Slack, Github, etc.
     
  2. Workflow Agent triggers a Coding Agent.
     
• Create a "Standard Task" library with reliable prompts.
  1. Rebasing rancher-monitoring to a new version of kube-prom-stack
     
  2. Update charts to use new images
     
  3. Apply changes to comply with a new linter
     
  4. Bump complex Go dependencies, like k8s modules
     
  5. Backport pull requests to other branches
• Add “review agents” that review the generated PR.
  

See also