Testing & Current

torindan · 2004-04-29 07:17:11

I put a "testing" repository in my pacman.conf few weeks ago and updated my packages to gcc3.4 perl5.8.4 and so on.
So my system has now following packages from testing :

gaim 0.77-1t2
gcc 3.4.0-1t3
groff 1.19-2t1
html-parser 3.35-2t1
html-tagset 3.03-3t1
imagemagick 6.0.0-3t1
perl 5.8.4-1t2
perlxml 2.34-3t1

Now gcc 3.4 is in current (and all other pachages will make their way to current/extra), so what are the differences (if any) between "testing" package and "current/extra" package ?
Should I upgrade to "official packages" or not?
If the answer is "Yes" then I'd like to fill a feature request for pacman:
When "testing" is commented in pacman.conf and "pacman -Suy" is issued pacman says :

:: gaim-0.77-1t2: local version is newer
:: gcc-3.4.0-1t3: local version is newer
:: groff-1.19-2t1: local version is newer
:: imagemagick-6.0.0-3t1: local version is newer
:: perl-5.8.4-1t2: local version is newer
:: perlxml-2.34-3t1: local version is newer
:: Above packages will be skipped. To manually upgrade use 'pacman -S <pkg>'
error: unresolvable dependencies:
html-tagset: requires perl>=5.8.4-1 but it is not in the sync db

1. Why the ONLY way to upgrade a testing package is by hand
2. Why html-tagset is already in "official" repository and perl 5.8.4 (which is a dependency) is still in "testing"

torindan · 2004-04-29 13:45:28

Looks like I caught repositories in the middle of "something" and that why my pacman went crasy. Now everything looks nice and I'm kindly asked "Proceed with upgrade? [Y/n]"

Can you avoid the situation that some package is listed on webpage, an announce is made in "News" section, and repositories are not "ready" yet?

Still question remains : what are the differencies between "testing" and "official" packages, is it same package or something was changed and I need to download it?

It also would be nice to have a small changelog for each package for example what changed in "xfree86-4.4.0-2" compared with "xfree86-4.4.0-1", maybe I don't need this changes, so I don't need to download 50M to see no difference (same for kernel-2.6.5-3).

shen · 2004-04-29 15:55:24

Basically from what I have gathered testing is where new packages go when they receive a version increase and it's not just a bug fix release. Here they go through extensive testing before being put into the current repo. This way new versions of apps are thoroughly tested to ensure they won't break any of the packages in current. Then if any packages in current need to be compiled against the new package or update for any reason this happens without disrupting the current tree. Basically Testing is as it means test packages.

Example gcc 3.4 was released so they tossed it in the testing repo so it could go through extensive testing to make sure it's not gonna break things.. Initially it started as 2 seperate packages ...gcc 3.4 and gcc 3.3.3 compat and eventually they were combines into what is now the gcc 3.4 package.

Hope that helps clarify some.

kakabaratruskia · 2004-04-29 21:11:18

torindan wrote:

Can you avoid the situation that some package is listed on webpage, an announce is made in "News" section, and repositories are not "ready" yet?

Yep, this is a little bothering, is it possible to put the packages in the web page after they are in the repos?

Xentac · 2004-04-30 06:20:38

The web page is driven off the db scripts, all stored on archlinux.org. The main repo is at ftp.archlinux.org, which is a totally different machine. It's synced once an hour. Other mirrors are at other times.

If you rsync off of archlinux.org and use the packages that are downloaded, they will be exactly the ones on the web page.

How do you propose we fix this?

jf/ · 2004-05-07 04:06:11

Xentac wrote:

The web page is driven off the db scripts, all stored on archlinux.org. The main repo is at ftp.archlinux.org, which is a totally different machine. It's synced once an hour.

sorry, but it's synced with what? the db scripts on archlinux.org (web)? (i suppose that's what u mean)

Other mirrors are at other times.
If you rsync off of archlinux.org and use the packages that are downloaded, they will be exactly the ones on the web page.
How do you propose we fix this?

how about giving a gmt date and time, for when the package is initially released on archlinux.org?, plus perhaps just a disclaimer to say that depending on which server u sync off of, "your mileage may vary"? perhaps give a certain "max timeframe" that one will have to wait (eg. "10 hours")?

oh and btw - where is this "News" section?

Dusty · 2004-05-07 05:41:35

Xentac wrote:

How do you propose we fix this?

one (not necessarily good) way is to not list packages on the home page until they are propogated to the mirrors.

You might say people should be made aware of new packages ASAP, but
listing packages on the front page makes people think they can selectively upgrade just those packages, when really it's better to do frequent Syu's. So they might accidentally get the package by Syu before it's listed on the page, but they won't get this confusion about packages being listed and "not available".

Dusty

Xentac · 2004-05-07 20:41:15

jf/ wrote:

Xentac wrote:
The web page is driven off the db scripts, all stored on archlinux.org. The main repo is at ftp.archlinux.org, which is a totally different machine. It's synced once an hour.
sorry, but it's synced with what? the db scripts on archlinux.org (web)? (i suppose that's what u mean)

The package files are initially stored on archlinux.org. All rsyncs (done by the mirrors) are taken from archlinux.org. ftp.archlinux.org does an rsync every hour off of archlinux.org.

jf/ wrote:

Other mirrors are at other times.
If you rsync off of archlinux.org and use the packages that are downloaded, they will be exactly the ones on the web page.
How do you propose we fix this?
how about giving a gmt date and time, for when the package is initially released on archlinux.org?, plus perhaps just a disclaimer to say that depending on which server u sync off of, "your mileage may vary"? perhaps give a certain "max timeframe" that one will have to wait (eg. "10 hours")?
oh and btw - where is this "News" section?

You can click on the package to see when it was last updated.

Apart from complaints from people like you, saying you can't updated right away, what would a disclaimer serve? I think it'd just clutter the page...

Umm... the news section is that second big box on the main page... Right below the package section... It's titled Current News.

Dusty wrote:

one (not necessarily good) way is to not list packages on the home page until they are propogated to the mirrors.

That section was initially added to show people that things were actually happening with Arch Linux, even though we hadn't posted news for months. Originally, because ftp.archlinux.org and archlinux.org were the same machine, when an update was listed it was immediately available. I would tend to agree that that solution isn't a very good one

jf/ · 2004-05-08 01:48:03

Xentac wrote:

The package files are initially stored on archlinux.org. All rsyncs (done by the mirrors) are taken from archlinux.org. ftp.archlinux.org does an rsync every hour off of archlinux.org.

ah! ok - thanks...

Xentac wrote:

You can click on the package to see when it was last updated.
Apart from complaints from people like you, saying you can't updated right away, what would a disclaimer serve? I think it'd just clutter the page...

hey now, just to get things straight, i wasnt the one who complained about this ok... But no worries - i wont take it personally.

Xentac wrote:

Umm... the news section is that second big box on the main page... Right below the package section... It's titled Current News.

oh that. I do drop by the main web page whenever i want to search for updates to a package, but other than that, i dont really pay much attention to it... I guess now perhaps i should - considering that the newsletters (put in "to read" list) are available from there as well!

Arch Linux

#1 2004-04-29 07:17:11

Testing & Current

#2 2004-04-29 13:45:28

Re: Testing & Current

#3 2004-04-29 15:55:24

Re: Testing & Current

#4 2004-04-29 21:11:18

Re: Testing & Current

#5 2004-04-30 06:20:38

Re: Testing & Current

#6 2004-05-07 04:06:11

Re: Testing & Current

#7 2004-05-07 05:41:35

Re: Testing & Current

#8 2004-05-07 20:41:15

Re: Testing & Current

#9 2004-05-08 01:48:03

Re: Testing & Current

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