[Mageia-dev] Various proposals around backports and other media management

Wed Oct 6 00:06:41 CEST 2010

On Tuesday, 5 October 2010 19:46:45 Samuel Verschelde wrote:
+> Hello to everyone on the list,
+> 
+> As some people said in another thread, Mandriva's current media schema
+> already gives the opportunity to : - install newer versions of software if
+> needed (from backports media), - keep a stable system with only security
+> fixes if needed (updates media, for servers or any workstation where
+> stability counts more than being bleeding-edge)
+> 
+> However, we can improve things around backports, updates, testing and debug
+> media for the end user's benefit.
+> 
+> I'd like to propose the following improvements if you think they would be
+> good (and I'm ready to help make them happen) :
+> 
+> 
+> - a section on the mageia website dedicated to package updates : what's new
+> in security/bugfix updates, what's new in backports (aka version updates),
+> ... with screen captures, description of what changed in this version,
+> links to upstream websites, comments from users, focus on some
+> applications... 
+
+Please take into consideration features that might be beneficial to package 
+maintainers as well. If you haven't yet, please look at e.g. Youri project, 
+Sophie etc.
+
+> Some user communities already did that for 3rd party
+> repositories for Mandriva, and having it in a centralized and visible
+> place would make backports more visible. How many users know that latest
+> versions for wine, wesnoth (one of the best opensource games), vlc, and
+> many other packages are already available in backports media for mandriva
+> ? Today there is a changelog mailing list, but this is not for everyone.
+> This would be more user-centric than packager-centric. I tried to improve
+> backports visibility on the Mandriva forum, but without any automation it
+> took an enormous amount of time to maintain :
+> http://forum.mandriva.com/viewforum.php?f=123 (see threads beginning with
+> "New Soft" or "Backport")
+
+RSS feed or use of twitter by build system may be useful ....
+
+
+> - add a "welcome" screen to rpmdrake, where people could choose between :
+>  * Browse and install security / bugfix updates
+>  * Browse and install new versions of software ("backports")
+>  * Install new software
+>  * Uninstall software
+>  * Skip this newbie step and get me to the real stuff, I'll use the various
+> options to do what I need Rpmdrake can also be enhanced to show for each
+> package update whether it's a backport or a standard update. It's not easy
+> currently (you have to dig into package details).
+
+I would like a column for 'medium name' or so, which you could sort on ...
+
+> - (the biggest part, but the one with most long term benefits I hope) add
+> metadata to media to make urpmi more media-aware. Today, rpmdrake detects
+> backports because the backports media have "backports" in their name.
+> That's a (useful) hack, but we could do better. One solution could be to
+> give metadata to each media : * release vs updates vs backports
+>  * testing vs stable
+>  * debug vs non-debug
+> Combination of these "tags" would give the following media :
+>     * main release (just like today's media)
+>     * main updates
+>     * main updates testing : for update candidates, this is our current
+> "main testing" media * main backports
+>     * main backports testing : for backports candidates (as someone who
+> frequently does backports, I sometimes feel the lack for it) 
+
+As long as it doesn't take the focus off the development release. In Mandriva, 
+I think there were some uploads to backports before the upload to cooker, 
+which can cause problems for users if not corrected.
+
+> * main
+> release debug...
+>     * contrib...
+>     * non-free...
+> It may seem a lot of media, but in fact you have to think they all are only
+> flavours of the main, contrib, non-free, and other media. We can think of
+> a better presentation in UI tools that will in fact make them appear less
+> cluttered than it is today :
+> http://stormi.lautre.net/fichiers/mageia/media-configuration-proposal.ods
+> 
+> In CLI, urpmi would default to using only release and updates media (which
+> you could change in configuration if needed), and you could use other
+> media with the following switches for example : --use-backports : enables
+> all backports media
+> --use-testing : enables all testing media
+> --use-debug : enables all debug media
+
+Well, using the 'name hack', for some time (since 2009.1?), users who have 
+"default" repos should currently be able to use '--searchmedia Backports', '--
+searchmedia Testing', '--searchmedia Debug' for the same purpose. (May require 
+urpmi.update of the medium first).
+
+Regards,
+Buchan
+