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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 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com