[Mageia-dev] Missing packages in Mageia 1. How to backport?

Sun Jun 19 06:30:20 CEST 2011

Ahmad Samir a écrit :
+>
+> On 10 June 2011 13:44, Wolfgang Bornath<molch.b at googlemail.com>  wrote:
+>> 2011/6/10 Michael Scherer<misc at zarb.org>:
+>>>
+>>> We have used backports in the past for that, and I see no reason to
+>>> change that.
+>>>
+>>> If the problem is that backports were too buggy in the past, then we
+>>> should fix backports process, not bypassing them.
+>>>
+>>> And if we start by pushing new version in update, people will soon
+>>> wonder why the new version of X is in updates, while the new version of
+>>> Y is not, just because we didn't have X in release and Y was there.
+>>
+>> Problem I see:
+>> So far (in Mandriva), example:  we have used 2010.0/main/backports to
+>> offer new versions of software which had an older version in 2010/main
+>> but the newer version in 2010.1/main, or as the name says: backporting
+>> a newer version of a software from the current release to a previous
+>> release, as often used for Firefox.
+>
+> Firefox should always go to /updates, not backports, usually it has
+> many sec fixed, so firefox and thunderbird are special cases.
+
+I agree.
+And the same for other software which almost always has security fixes.
+(Of course we should enumerate these exceptions.)
+
+>> For Mageia it means, /backports should hold backports of software
+>> which has an older version in 1/core but a newer version in cauldron.
+>> If we put new software (aka missing packages) in /backports and the
+>> user activates /backports he also runs the risk that existing packages
+>> of his stable installation will be replaced by real backports of newer
+>> versions, backported from Cauldron - which he may not want to do.
+>
+> Then he shouldn't use backports; but the point is if a totally new
+> package, to Mageia 1, that never existed in core, is in backports, the
+> user shouldn't see any regression with regard to that package as his
+> experience with it before using backports is null, it didn't exist.
+
+We should expect that users _selectively_ install from backports.
+That should be documented somewhere for users (if not already).
+It seems almost a case for never activating the backport repositories -- considering that backports 
+can be selected without those repositories activated.
+
+>> I wonder why we do not put these "missing packages" in /testing and
+>> after a while in /core or /non-free or /tainted (wherever they
+>> belong). These packages are software which were supposed to be in
+>> /core or /non-free or /tainted, they were just forgotten|came too
+>> late|whatever for Mageia 1 release freeze.
+>
+> There will always be late packages, always. One example is a new
+> version of foo that was released two days before Mageia's release, it
+> won't be submitted through freeze, but will go to backports.
+>
+> IMHO, backports is way to offer "late" packages to user, whether
+> they're new packages or newer versions of packages in
+> core/nonfree/tainted, instead of the user installing them from 3rd
+> party repos or having to build them himself (not all users are savvy
+> with [re]building src.rpm's).
+
+It's usually not strictly necessary to rebuild the rpm's, but it is certainly much nicer to install 
+rpm's built for Mageia.  Especially for less advanced users.
+And backports is where to put "late" packages.
+
+>> --
+>> wobo
+>>
+>
+>
+
+-- 
+André
+