fbterm removed from arch repo

glitsj16 · 2017-04-24 03:01:23

What's the deal with the fbterm package? It has been removed from community repo as of a few days ago. I do have a local copy of the fbterm PKGBUILD, and there's fbterm-patched, so that's not the issue. The wiki still refers to it (fbterm). Any clues on the rationale behind the removal?

x33a · 2017-04-24 06:27:31

Usually, packages removed from the official repos are moved to the AUR, but that wasn't done in this case. Though, there is one fbterm-git package there: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/fbterm-git/

Moving thread to pacman issues.

Jristz · 2017-04-24 08:38:23

I find every time more common that maintainer instead of drop the packages to aur they just remove them without traces like now... that maybe because there not unambiguous prosidure for this?

well anyway, fbterm pkgbuild should do the work but, upstream is google code which is closing so good luck finding the true upstream

Allan · 2017-04-24 09:55:48

Jristz wrote:

they just remove them without traces like now...

They clear the SVN history?

Trilby · 2017-04-24 10:44:13

Dropping packages to the AUR always seemed like a bad idea to me. We don't need more orphans in the AUR. If no one is able/willing to maintain the package (in the main repos or the AUR) then let it die. If someone is willing, they can grab the last working PKGBUILD and submit it to the AUR themselves.

That last sentence captures another reason why it'd be bad to automatically drop such packages in the AUR. I highly doubt the dev/TU just said "screw fbterm, I don't want it in our repos anymore" - I'm confident it was something more like "too bad for fbterm, I just don't have the time to fix whatever is preventing it from currently building." Packages would not get dropped if they worked perfectly and caused no conflicts or other problems. There must have been some sort of problem that the dev/TU wasn't ready to invest time in fixing - it could be simple, who knows, but if the current package files just worked flawlessly, why would it get dropped? So dropping the current state of the package files to the AUR: then not only would we have one more orphan, we'd have a broken orphan.

I like fbterm - I'd happily try to keep it up in the AUR. But there are already working fbterm packages in the AUR (I use fbterm-patched). So ... what's the point.

EDIT: oops, fbterm-patched seems gone too ... but just the same there are others.

EDIT 2: I just confirmed the last used PKGBUILD fails. The first problem is easy to solve: the upstream source url changed - it was on a googlecode site, but they have archived it. However, once I changed the url, there were a handful of build errors that look like either a latent upstream bug that has only recently become problematic. As upstream development seems to have stopped 7 years ago, it's not likely to be fixed. So someone adopting the PKGBUILD in the AUR would do no good. If you want fbterm, someone needs to step up and fix the code.

glitsj16 · 2017-04-24 17:38:41

Thanks for all input. I tried piecing things together and put together a fresh version of the former fbterm-patched PKGBUILD. It needed a gcc-6 fix to build properly. Revised PKGBUILD and patches at https://github.com/glitsj16/fbterm-patched.

@Trillby Please feel free to add this revised fbterm-patched to the AUR after checking my somewhat rusty PKGBUILD skills. When things turn out ok I'll edit the fbterm wiki page accordingly.

Jristz · 2017-04-25 04:04:18

Allan wrote:

Jristz wrote:
they just remove them without traces like now...
They clear the SVN history?

My sentence was not literal...

But for future references, is there a way to surf the svn history to find a dropped package is a more gracious than just download the svn history? because if a package is dropped then the web interface will not show it and also the robotx prevent wayback from tracking the package page and pkgbuil web page.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-04-24 03:01:23

fbterm removed from arch repo

#2 2017-04-24 06:27:31

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

#3 2017-04-24 08:38:23

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

#4 2017-04-24 09:55:48

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

#5 2017-04-24 10:44:13

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

#6 2017-04-24 17:38:41

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

#7 2017-04-25 04:04:18

Re: fbterm removed from arch repo

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