Arch Release Announcements

panth0r · 2012-12-06 06:43:36

/me is hoping this isn't rude for one of potentially man reasons.

First, thanks for the best (and maybe most fun) GNU/Linux distribution since Gentoo, and since Arch preceded Gentoo, la-di-da.

My potentially (and unfortunately) rude suggestion; however, pertains to installation media updates: with installation media being released (increasingly more consistently towards the beginning of each month), posting new media updates to the news/home page seems like overkill.

This opinion arises somewhat from "something" I read "somewhere:" one of the more important aspects of the news page is to serve current users of changes that require manual intervention, which very much could be incorrect, so just an opinion and some food for thought.

Thanks for the great distribution!

ngoonee · 2012-12-06 07:08:23

Reasonable enough as a suggestion.

Totally unsuitable here because the 'right' people won't see it. I suggest posting on arch-general instead.

drcouzelis · 2012-12-06 14:27:40

ngoonee wrote:

Reasonable enough as a suggestion.

I agree that it is a good suggestion, although I don't think I agree with it.

My initial reaction to your idea was that it make sense. ActualIy think I had the same thought a few weeks ago.

My second thought was "BUT... But, I like recieving notifications! It reminds me to download the latest copy of the installer and burn it to a CD-RW for emergency purposes." This, of course, is not a very good reason to disagree with your idea.

My third thought was that, in a sense, the announcements for the new installation media are in related to "manual intervention" (in a way). Changes in the way the Arch Linux core is configured by default can assist users in knowing about changes they can make to their installation.

For example, the recently announcement says the media included "arch-install-scripts 9 with an improved fstab generator". My fstab file was generated by an older version of the arch-install-scripts. Now I can learn about what has been improved, and maybe learn about a better way to configure my fstab file for use with Arch Linux.

...My final thought is that I don't think I have a very good argument against your proposal.

WorMzy · 2012-12-06 15:26:27

one of the more important aspects of the news page is to serve current users of changes that require manual intervention

I have to manually stop seeding the old iso, and add the new one to transmission.

I sometimes forget to check Arch-Releng, so posting an announcement is good for me.

ataraxia · 2012-12-06 15:28:28

I also like seeing this as an announcement. The monthly release doesn't always show up on the same day each month, and I don't want to have to keep checking the Download page for changes. (I download each new ISO and write it to a USB stick, as it's the best rescue disk I know right now.)

panth0r · 2012-12-06 22:52:24

Thanks for the replies so far!

Hmm, originally I was just going to say, "thanks for the replies, the consensus seems to be 'no' and that's perfectly cool" and stop there; however, the announcement does indeed serve the same purpose to me as it serves each of you: see what's changed in the install medium (I frequently reinstall Arch when new media are released, but that might just be me being weird ), get the newest medium, put it on a disc/drive and host the torrent. I've got a hunch a lot of users share this or very similar use cases.

Why can't this be done in an automated fashion, then? A program that updates when a new release becomes available, downloads that new release, tells you about the changes, removes the old release(s), etc.; most/all of this would be optional and configurable.

Although this is becoming more removed from a change in the website, would you want announcements on the main page if this proposed program existed?

It's difficult to imagine how such a program might preclude wanting/needing to check the main page for this information; that is, properly notifying you in a timely manner and not obstructively. So I'd love to hear suggestions to this end.

In either case (whether or not you'd want announcements), I'd like to know if you'd use the proposed program (which I'd aim to write in Bash)?

WonderWoofy · 2012-12-06 22:58:24

WorMzy wrote:

I have to manually stop seeding the old iso, and add the new one to transmission.

Two days ago I would have disagreed and have put "...and add the new one to rtorrent". But now I have discovered transmission-remote-cli, and I agree in full.

cfr · 2012-12-06 23:27:21

I also like getting the announcements and I'm not convinced an automated programme would fill the need. For one thing, if people are putting it on a USB stick or CD, it is hard to see how that could be automated - presumably, it would need to ask you for a CD etc.

But also this is just not the kind of thing I want automated. If I've got a version which works, I may not want to mess around with a new version right now. But I do wish to know it is there. (I think I'm currently using the October iso on both hdd and usb.)

I suspect that no automated programme - however configurable - could meet the needs of all those who find the announcements useful because those needs are just going to be wildly various.

Plus, it is only once a month and it gives me a (probably illusory!) sense that I have some foggiest idea what is going on with Arch!

drcouzelis · 2012-12-07 04:05:39

panth0r wrote:

I frequently reinstall Arch when new media are released

You... reinstall the operating system that never needs to be reinstalled every month?

czubek · 2012-12-07 14:24:32

I welcome the announcements. I routinely download and install onto a usb stick. When a major problem arises that I can’t solve I simply re-install. The great thing about Arch being a rolling release is that a reinstallation invariably leapfrogs any earlier problem(s).

Scimmia · 2012-12-07 18:21:12

I really think a lot of people don't understand how arch's netinstall works.

Nothing from the disk gets installed on the target system. Nothing.

Everything is downloaded at the time you install. Using the October install media is going to get you the exact same system as using the December install media because they all download the latest packages.

This is why I kinda agree with the OP about the announcements. If there's a change to the install scripts, fine. If there's not, a new install media doesn't mean much.

panth0r, reinstalling because there's a new install media is one of the dumber things I've heard here. Doing a pacman -Syu would update the packages to the exact same versions and same configuration as what you're doing.

Last edited by Scimmia (2012-12-07 18:22:41)

cfr · 2012-12-08 00:15:09

Scimmia wrote:

This is why I kinda agree with the OP about the announcements. If there's a change to the install scripts, fine. If there's not, a new install media doesn't mean much.

If we reach a point where these changes are few and infrequent, I'd agree but right now there seem to be significant improvements being made to the install media and so I think it is good to know about this. Not because I install it to update my system (?!) but because I would use it to reinstall or rescue my system if the need arose. (Actually, I'm still using October but I'll probably prepare a USB December medium soon as I think the EFI setup is different now.)

panth0r, reinstalling because there's a new install media is one of the dumber things I've heard here. Doing a pacman -Syu would update the packages to the exact same versions and same configuration as what you're doing.

While I agree that doing this is unnecessary and possibly based on a misconception, it is not true that you will end up with the same configuration. This will only happen if you haven't made any configuration changes which you don't replicate as part of the reinstall. While I think it would be infinitely saner to just replace the configuration files you no longer want tweaked with defaults, I suppose that reinstalling will achieve the same purpose. It is a sledge hammer to crack a nut but it should at least crack the nut...

fsckd · 2012-12-08 15:16:37

panth0r wrote:

Why can't this be done in an automated fashion, then? A program that updates when a new release becomes available, downloads that new release, tells you about the changes, removes the old release(s), etc.; most/all of this would be optional and configurable.

#!/bin/bash

download_dir="/tmp"
torrent_client="" # have your torrent client watch $download_dir
previous_release_file="$XDG_CACHE_HOME/arch-torrent-release"
dl_page_url="https://www.archlinux.org/download/"

cd "$download_dir"

previous_release=""
[[ -f "$previous_release_file" ]] && read -r previous_release < "$previous_release_file"

dl_page="`curl -s "$dl_page_url"`"

current_release="`echo "$dl_page" | egrep 'Current Release:' | egrep -o '[0-9]{4}\.[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{2}'`"
current_torrent="`echo "$dl_page" | egrep -o 'https://www.archlinux.org/.*\.torrent'`"

case "`vercmp "$current_release" "$previous_release"`" in
     1) echo "New torrent: $current_release"
        wget -q "$current_torrent"
        [[ -n "$torrent_client" ]] && "$torrent_client" "${current_torrent##*/}"
        sleep 30d
        ;;
     0) echo "Same old, same old... trying again tomorrow"
        sleep 1d
        ;;
    -1) echo "Marty, we've gone back in time!"
        sleep 1d
        ;;
esac

WorMzy · 2012-12-08 16:53:40

-1) echo "Marty, we've gone back in time!"

Hah, love it.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-12-06 06:43:36

Arch Release Announcements

#2 2012-12-06 07:08:23

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#3 2012-12-06 14:27:40

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#4 2012-12-06 15:26:27

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#5 2012-12-06 15:28:28

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#6 2012-12-06 22:52:24

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#7 2012-12-06 22:58:24

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#8 2012-12-06 23:27:21

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#9 2012-12-07 04:05:39

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#10 2012-12-07 14:24:32

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#11 2012-12-07 18:21:12

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#12 2012-12-08 00:15:09

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#13 2012-12-08 15:16:37

Re: Arch Release Announcements

#14 2012-12-08 16:53:40

Re: Arch Release Announcements

Board footer