I'm trying to get propellor running, and for now, I'd prefer
to not use a central git repo, according to what I have read 

```
  propellor --spin host 
```

should do just that: not use git.

So I have cabal installed propellor locally, and
in addition cloned

```
  git clone git://propellor.branchable.com/ .propellor
```

in my $HOME

My local machine (from where I run propellor) runs debian testing, the
machine I want to spin to: softland, debian unstable+experimental,
ie. unstable in general + all things ghc from experimental, to get ghc
7.8.4 (but not any more than that from experimental).

was not sure, what the right propellor config would be in that case:

```
& os (System (Debian Experimental) "amd64") 
```
which I have used, or

```
 & os (System (Debian Unstable) "amd64")
```
because in general I want Unstable


First thing I notice, when running


```
$ propellor --spin softland
```

propellor nevertheless tries to git push (but fails, obviously,
somewhere down in propellors output):

```
...
Building propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing library propellor-2.2.1...
In-place registering propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing executable 'propellor' for propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing executable 'propellor-config' for propellor-2.2.1...
Propellor build ... done
[master 8ca2715] propellor spin
Git commit ... done
Counting objects: 10, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
Writing objects: 100% (10/10), 913 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 10 (delta 6), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: you are not allowed to change config.hs
To git://propellor.branchable.com/
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (pre-receive hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'git://propellor.branchable.com/'
Push to central git repository ... failed
Stop listening request sent.
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid InRelease
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental InRelease
Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,876 B]
...
```

Note in particular the lines:

```
  To git://propellor.branchable.com/
   ! [remote rejected] master -> master (pre-receive hook declined)
  error: failed to push some refs to 'git://propellor.branchable.com/'
  Push to central git repository ... failed
```

Shouldn't propellor be completely quiet about git /
not try to push at all?

OK, never mind, let's see what's next: some long
output, propellor finally fails, I assume it's because
of my sid+experimental configuration?


```
Stop listening request sent.
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid InRelease
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental InRelease
Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,876 B]
Get:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/contrib amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:3 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/non-free amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:4 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/contrib Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:5 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,876 B]
Get:6 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/non-free Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:7 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/main Sources [7,633 kB]
Get:8 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/contrib Sources [57.1 kB]
Get:9 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sid/non-free Sources [105 kB]
Get:10 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/main Sources/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:11 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/contrib Sources/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:12 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/non-free Sources/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:13 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:14 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/contrib amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:15 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/contrib Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:16 http://ftp.uk.debian.org experimental/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Fetched 7,897 kB in 6s (1,169 kB/s)
Reading package lists...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping gnupg, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping ghc, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping cabal-install, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping libghc-async-dev, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libghc-missingh-dev : Depends: libghc-hunit-dev-1.2.5.2-6e02e
                       Depends: libghc-array-dev-0.4.0.1-3b784
                       Depends: libghc-base-dev-4.6.0.1-8aa5d
                       Depends: libghc-containers-dev-0.5.0.0-ab1da
                       Depends: libghc-directory-dev-1.2.0.1-91a78
                       Depends: libghc-filepath-dev-1.3.0.1-b12cb
                       Depends: libghc-hslogger-dev-1.2.1-028cc
                       Depends: libghc-mtl-dev-2.1.2-94c72
                       Depends: libghc-network-dev-2.4.1.2-040ce
                       Depends: libghc-old-locale-dev-1.0.0.5-6729c
                       Depends: libghc-old-time-dev-1.1.0.1-2f8ea
                       Depends: libghc-parsec-dev-3.1.3-6c6e2
                       Depends: libghc-process-dev-1.1.0.2-76e05
                       Depends: libghc-random-dev-1.0.1.1-43fdc
                       Depends: libghc-regex-compat-dev-0.95.1-121c7
                       Depends: libghc-time-dev-1.4.0.1-10dc4
                       Depends: libghc-unix-dev-2.6.0.1-4f219
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libghc-hslogger-dev : Depends: libghc-base-dev-4.6.0.1-8aa5d
                       Depends: libghc-containers-dev-0.5.0.0-ab1da
                       Depends: libghc-directory-dev-1.2.0.1-91a78
                       Depends: libghc-mtl-dev-2.1.2-94c72
                       Depends: libghc-network-dev-2.4.1.2-040ce
                       Depends: libghc-old-locale-dev-1.0.0.5-6729c
                       Depends: libghc-process-dev-1.1.0.2-76e05
                       Depends: libghc-time-dev-1.4.0.1-10dc4
                       Depends: libghc-unix-dev-2.6.0.1-4f219
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libghc-unix-compat-dev : Depends: libghc-base-dev-4.6.0.1-8aa5d
                          Depends: libghc-unix-dev-2.6.0.1-4f219
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping libghc-ansi-terminal-dev, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libghc-ifelse-dev : Depends: libghc-base-dev-4.6.0.1-8aa5d
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping libghc-network-dev, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping libghc-quickcheck2-dev, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Skipping libghc-mtl-dev, it is already installed and upgrade is not set.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libghc-monadcatchio-transformers-dev : Depends: libghc-base-dev-4.6.0.1-8aa5d
                                        Depends: libghc-extensible-exceptions-dev-0.1.1.4-255a3
                                        Depends: libghc-monads-tf-dev-0.1.0.2-731f0
                                        Depends: libghc-transformers-dev-0.3.0.0-ff2bb
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Downloading the latest package list from hackage.haskell.org
Skipping download: Local and remote files match.
Resolving dependencies...
All the requested packages are already installed:
Use --reinstall if you want to reinstall anyway.
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring propellor-2.2.1...
Building propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing library propellor-2.2.1...
In-place registering propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing executable 'propellor' for propellor-2.2.1...
Preprocessing excaecutable 'propellor-bal: can't find source for configconf in src
ig' for propellor-2.2.1...
propellor: user error (ssh ["-o","ControlPath=/home/rx/.ssh/propellor/softland.sock","-o","ControlMaster=auto","-o","ControlPersist=yes","root@softland","sh -c 'if [ ! -d /usr/local/propellor/.git ] ; then (if ! git --version >/dev/null; then apt-get update && apt-get --no-install-recommends --no-upgrade -y install git; fi && echo STATUSNeedGitClone) || echo STATUSNeedPrecompiled ; else cd /usr/local/propellor && if ! test -x ./propellor; then ( apt-get update ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install gnupg ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install ghc ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install cabal-install ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-async-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-missingh-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-hslogger-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-unix-compat-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-ansi-terminal-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-ifelse-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-network-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-quickcheck2-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-mtl-dev ; apt-get --no-upgrade --no-install-recommends -y install libghc-monadcatchio-transformers-dev ; cabal update ; cabal install --only-dependencies ) || true && cabal configure && cabal build && ln -sf dist/build/propellor-config/propellor-config propellor; fi && ./propellor --boot softland ; fi'"] exited 1)
rx@varenne ~/work/propellor $
```

I should add, that I have tried to --spin to another
machine, and ... finally got that working:


```
 , host "laptop"
  & os (System (Debian Testing) "amd64")
```

Not sure, if I need more than that, want to keep it to the
minimum first, anyway:


```
  propellor --spin laptop
```

this works, yeah - sorry for the noise, above -  but still I get


```
Git commit ... done
To git://propellor.branchable.com/
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (fetch first)
error: failed to push some refs to 'git://propellor.branchable.com/'
hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do
hint: not have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing
hint: to the same ref. You may want to first integrate the remote changes
hint: (e.g., 'git pull ...') before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.
Push to central git repository ... failed
```

Possible to turn off these git push attempts?


Thanks,
  Andreas
