21.11 Feature Freeze

[nrdxp]

It's that time again!

Let's clarify any blocking concerns for the 21.11 Release, which will be cut on the 26th of November.

Nix/nix-cli ecosystem: @edolstra @grahamc @nbp @Profpatsch
Mobile: @samueldr
Nixos Modules / internals : @infinisil @Ericson2314 @alyssais
Nixos tests: @tfc
Marketing: @garbas
Docs: @ryantm
Release: @tomberek

C: @matthewbauer
Coq: @CohenCyril @gares @siraben @vbgl @Zimmi48
Emacs: @adisbladis
Vim/Neovim: @jonringer @softinio @teto
Erlang: @gleber @NixOS/beam
Go: @kalbasit @Mic92 @zowoq
Haskell: @NixOS/haskell @cdepillabout @sternenseemann @maralorn @expipiplus1
Python: @FRidh @jonringer
Perl: @stigtsp
Php: @NixOS/php @aanderse @etu @globin @Ma27 @talyz
Ruby: @marsam
Rust: @zowoq @Mic92 @andir @LnL7
Dhall: @Gabriel439 @ehmry
R: @jbedo @bcdarwin

Darwin: @NixOS/darwin-maintainers @toonn

Bazel: @mboes
Blockchains @mmahut @RaghavSood
Podman: @NixOS/podman
DockerTools: @roberth @utdemir
Gnome: @jtojnar @NixOS/gnome
Qt / KDE: @ttuegel @NixOS/qt-kde
Cinnamon: @mkg20001
Pantheon: @NixOS/pantheon
Postgres: @thoughtpolice

Everyone else: @NixOS/nixpkgs-committers @NixOS/release-engineers

No issue is too big or small, but let's remember that we are all working on donated time here, so let's triage those issues that can be realistically addressed by release time. Thanks everyone!

[Uthar]

It would be cool to include JDK 17 in the new NixOS (#137956), there's some work already started

[Gabriella439]

No pending changes for Dhall

[symphorien]

enableDebugging is broken: #136756. But I just checked, it's not documented, so maybe there are not so many users out there.

[samueldr]

Not blocking per se, but TODO: U-Boot 2021.10 upgrade, once upstream releases it in the next few days/weeks. #140552

I don't think there's really anything else on my end.

It would be nice to get the Plasma Mobile PRs in, but not a blocker either.

[pasqui23]

Now that we have #118650 fixed I think we can land Plasma wayland by 21.11

[jonringer]

It would be cool to include JDK 17 in the new NixOS (#137956), there's some work already started

adding new packages can happen at any time, and can be backported at any time

[ryantm]

No blockers from docs that I know of. We've made progress, but unfortunately, I do not think we'll be vanquishing DocBook by this release.

[happysalada]

Nothing that I can think of on the erlang/elixir/beam side.

[bobby285271]

No blockers from @NixOS/pantheon as Pantheon 6 update has been merged. We will try to backport the upcoming non-breaking change to 21.11 just as worldofpeace used to.

[jbedo]

No blockers for R.

[etu]

No blockers for PHP.

[vcunat]

Plug: perhaps we could decide on some approach around ZFS and new-kernel images? #59863 (There's no perfect solution, I'm afraid.)

[rnhmjoj]

I would love to see #136777 completed for this release. There's been no progress lately, but I think there's still enough time to finish it before the freeze.

[sternenseemann]

From an LLVM-ish perspective, I'd love to get #138289 in which resolves #138013.

#139333 would also be great, it contains a refactor to the current man infrastructure and allows using mandoc as the default man page viewer. Edit: Don't feel comfortable merging something this late, 22.05 is also fine.

[mweinelt]

From the Python perspective I would want to finally get rid of python2. We have been keeping it alive for NixOps 1.7, but I was assured that it would be dropped in time for 21.11.

@adisbladis @jonringer @FRidh

[marsam]

No blockers for Ruby
For PostgreSQL I think we may want to drop 9.6 because has reached EOL

[rnhmjoj]

From the Python perspective I would want to finally get rid of python2. We have been keeping it alive for NixOps 1.7, but I was assured that it would be dropped in time for 21.11.

I would love to do that, but I don't think it's possible: there are still many applications (not libraries or python modules) that depends on it either at runtime or for the build system (like chromium).

[vcunat]

I suspect for build systems it might be OK-ish for a couple more years.

[Mic92]

I am not aware of any go or rust changes that need to go in.

[Mic92]

From the Python perspective I would want to finally get rid of python2. We have been keeping it alive for NixOps 1.7, but I was assured that it would be dropped in time for 21.11.

@adisbladis @jonringer @FRidh

At this point both nixopsUnstable and nixops are broken.

[Ma27]

Regarding the Linux kernel: I think it might be good to discuss how to proceed with hardened kernels in the future (see #140281)

[mweinelt]

At this point both nixopsUnstable and nixops are broken.

NixopsUnstable builds for me, fix for NixOps 1.7 #140363 is currently in staging.

[Mic92]

At this point both nixopsUnstable and nixops are broken.

NixopsUnstable builds for me, fix for NixOps 1.7 #140363.

It builds but it is unusable: nix-community/infra#123

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/lets-have-a-great-21-11-release-cycle/15262/5

[hmenke]

sof-firmware update: #140742

[hmenke]

@vcunat

Plug: perhaps we could decide on some approach around ZFS and new-kernel images? #59863 (There's no perfect solution, I'm afraid.)

There is just no solution at all. We can only hope that upstream starts moving faster to support stable kernels in a timely manner. Since #126980 there is an option to query the ZFS package for the latest supported kernel. If users prefer running linuxPackages_latest they can always set allowBroken = true to compile against an unsupported kernel anyway. (Unfortunately nixpkgs doesn't have an allowBrokenPredicate so you have to allow all broken packages at once)

[ju1m]

I'd like to get #146386 in. It makes hyperscan (a dependency of rspamd) build again. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: thanks, it has been done.

[jonringer]

I know it's late, but it took me 10 days (thanks chromium) to properly test this: #146545

I'm fine with backporting it. Doesn't look like any breaking behavior changes

[Mic92]

We might want to fix this btf issue when upgrading kernels #145249 and this issue with having systemd-logind restarting and crashing login sessions: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-rebuild-switch-crashes-wm-de/16127/4

[sternenseemann]

Reminder (to self) to backport these if they don't make it into the release before branch-off:

• ghcWithPackages: fix / update LLVM deactivation if NCG is available #146493(ghcWithPackages on aarch64-darwin)
• haskell.compiler: refactor LLVM handling, upgrade to latest LLVM version for each GHC version #146938 (more correct GHC 9.0.1 packaging)

[Moredread]

• Merge super-slicer-latest: renamed from super-slicer-staging #146819
  We should rename super-slicer-staging to super-slicer-latest per the discussion in super-slicer.stable: 2.3.56.8 -> 2.3.56.9 #136962 (comment)

[balsoft]

If it's still possible, I would request #146515 to be accepted

[SuperSandro2000]

If it's still possible, I would request #146515 to be accepted

I don't think we should squeeze in such a change last minute. There are probably more packages which need some adjustment and having that change a few months in unstable will probably reveal most of them. Especially DEs which heavily rely on XDG* shoulnd't break.

---

Since it is a mass rebuild it needs to go to staging anyway which is to late for 21.11. This could be backported but due to the potential breaking changes I would argue we shouldn't do that.

[vs49688]

Audacious 4.1 contains bug fixes that'd be nice to have in 21.11: #147247

[YellowOnion]

what about #144930 ? it's a testing kernel anyway and it doesn't really effect anything but itself.

[vcunat]

I don't follow you. That was merged days ago to master and thus got included in 21.11 automatically (fork happened just a couple days ago).

[daijihong]

it is the 26th of November now in China. waitting...

[tomberek]

We need help with #147294

[cab404]

Need review of #147544

[ehmry]

Our Squeak (Smalltalk) VM is stale and incompatible with current Squeak images, I'd like to get a new one in this release #147478.

[onny]

Already updated my notebook to 21.11 and my home server soon :D Many new features and bugfixes!

[daijihong]

expect release :)

[mkg20001]

@ehmry (and others): Generally everything that is not a breaking change can simply be backported. If it is a breaking change it can be introduced in a non-breaking manner (for example a breaking package updated could be introduced with a different name, as has been done with yggdrasil 4 in 21.05) without affecting the defaults.

For maintainers: just add the backport release-21.11 tag before merge and merge the PR the bot generates

Edit: In case it wasn't clear the release is cut, so everything that comes after the cut is a backport.

[jonringer]

Edit: In case it wasn't clear the release is cut, so everything that comes after the cut is a backport.

After branch-off this is true. Which was done a ~week ago

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/lets-have-a-great-21-11-release-cycle/15262/11

[vcunat]

@prehonor: this isn't a good thread for such reports. Use e.g. a separate issue.

[vcunat]

The release happened hours ago, so let me close. Of course, some of the mentioned topics might still qualify for 21.11 backports, etc.