[FFE] Introduce support for probing more storage types (via a new release)

[Dan Watkins]

For 19.04, we would like to expand the support for block device discovery available in curtin, to support installation on to existing partition in subiquity. The curtin changes will be covered under its standing FFE[0], but they will introduce a dependency on new probert functionality which is not yet available in the Ubuntu archive.

This feature freeze exception is to cover uploading a new version of probert to the archive which will include the new storage probing support. Due to the age of the current version of probert in the archive, this upload will also include a substantial rework to the Python portion of the network device discovery.

There are a couple of factors that mitigate the risk here. Firstly, the only reverse dependency of probert in the archive is subiquitycore, which is no longer used for subiquity (as it is now a snap); curtin will become the only relevant consumer of probert once it is uploaded. Secondly, the subiquity snap has been using the probert code directly from GitHub, so everything but the new block device discovery support has been receiving regular use in Ubuntu already. In particular, the networking rework landed 16 months ago, and has been pulled included in the subiquity snap since then.

[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/curtin/+bug/1819034

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

FFe granted.

[Ryan Harper (raharper)]

@Steve,

In preparing an upload for probert, in addition to the functional changes, there are some debian directory clean-ups, wondering if those are acceptable under this FFe? (some of the changes are adding package deps for the feature, so I'd assume those are).

http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/bZXHkQVzwt/

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Ryan, I have no concerns about the packaging changes in question. Thanks for checking.

[Dan Watkins (oddbloke)]

Please find attached a debdiff for the latest version of probert.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I've uploaded this to the queue for y'all.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package probert - 0.0.15

---------------
probert (0.0.15) disco; urgency=medium

  [ Ryan Harper ]
  * Add probing for advanced storage types (LP: #1821994)

  [ Daniel Watkins ]
  * d/control:
    - Remove unneeded X-Python3-Version
    - Remove hard-coded Depends on python3-all
    - Remove Build-Depends on python3-all
    - Add Build-Depends on python3-testtools for testing
    - Bump Standards-Version to 4.3.0
      - Update priority from extra to optional
    - Remove python3-yaml from Build-Depends and Depends; it isn't actually
      used by the package
    - Drop hard-coded Depends now that setup.py correctly expresses
      dependencies
  * d/rules:
    - Re-enable dh_auto_test
    - Remove unnecessary override_dh_installinit

 -- Ryan Harper <email address hidden> Wed, 10 Apr 2019 16:44:07 -0700