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#76 2008-01-23 23:18:59

RedShift
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-07-16
Posts: 230

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

I don't know what you guys do but I've upgraded systems that are months behind without problems, and broken software is a rarety. I use archlinux both as hobbyist and professional (all my servers run archlinux), and they run far better than any other distribution. Either you guys aren't knowing what you are doing or simply do not pay enough attention when you upgrade systems (you should really really follow the news). Even with those 6-monthly releases, upgrading between versions of for example fedora is one major PITA. Officially they don't even support online upgrades.

I've suggested trying to create a stable branch before, but I have been enlightened, I was noobish once too and it violates the principle of archlinux all over the line. Let alone all the work with updates to a stable branch.

IMO this should never ever be officially supported.

Archlinux seperates from the crowd because we use a rolling release system. So we're going to take that away too? What's left? We're on the road to the next ubuntu.

If you really want a "stable" repository, use another distro. There are millions out there that use the "releasing" principle.

Edit: after reading this thread I conclude that most of the problems with upgrading are caused by lack of knowledge. It's your own damn fault and having a stable branch will not make archlinux stable in your cases.

Last edited by RedShift (2008-01-23 23:39:20)


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#77 2008-01-24 01:01:32

ibendiben
Member
Registered: 2007-10-10
Posts: 519

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Read you own post too?
haha

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#78 2008-01-24 01:44:16

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

RedShift wrote:

after reading this thread I conclude that most of the problems with upgrading are caused by lack of knowledge. It's your own damn fault and having a stable branch will not make archlinux stable in your cases.

phrakture wrote:

Great to see we actually have people doing things this time. I think this will be a great boon to Arch-land.

If Arch's lead developer is intrigued, that's enough for me.

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#79 2008-01-24 14:05:07

dyscoria
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1,007

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

okraits wrote:

So i propose:

Why don't you contribute to the regular arch development and further improve the quality of the packages (which is great in my opinion - i have no problem with the rolling release - this is just what i want) by doing package testing for example? Why create a "branch" instead of joining manpower with the regular arch developers so that all arch users can gain from your work, not only the ones using your snapshots?

I guess the most ideal solution is to look at the original cause in the first place and fix that. In this case, the best case scenario would be to prevent rolling upgrades from breaking a system at all, ever. Unfortunately as far as I know, this is inherently impossible due to the nature of the Arch upgrade method and increased man power alone is not enough to change this.

That leaves two sub-optimal solutions: (1) the idea that you mentioned; and (2) the idea that is developing in this thread. In my eyes, I obviously have a preference for one of these options, but that is irrelevent. Either one provides a solution, and since people are already acting on the latter, there is no reason to stop their stone from rolling. If it ends up being a waste of resources, then changes can be made, but the best way to see whether it does or doesn't work out is for it to happen. This thread could go on forever with people exchanging opinions.


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#80 2008-01-26 02:19:29

raul_nds
Member
From: Lisbon, Portugal
Registered: 2007-06-28
Posts: 258

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

What about a simple Wiki page that says

The solution is very simple. I tried it for quite some time. I did an rsync of core and extra every 3 to 6 months. The rest of the time i used that local "mirror" as my package source. That worked really well and would implement a stable branch without the need for much work or not having the rolling release system any more!

And name it "Wiki - Arch "stable" (non official/community based) "

or something like that?

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#81 2008-01-26 03:26:37

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

loosec wrote:

The main reason I see for this is the 'full install from a cd' option that from what I understand is gone now. It is intensely annoying to use the 0.8 image and then do an upgrade, therefor it would be useful with a newer snapshot that included core and extra.

Your reason does not exist at all.

A smart-enough user, keeps all downloaded packages in a separate repo partitions, preferably stored somewhere at a network share.

So whenever you have to do an install, you have all the packages available locally and no download is needed.

By the way, why would you need to reinstall?

Arch - and Linux in general - does not break over time like Windows does. It does not need reinstalling every few months or year.

Conclusion:

We do not need what this thread proposes.

We do not want what this thread proposes.

If we do what this thread proposes, Arch will be awfully Ubuntu-ized.

You do not like Arch the way it is?

Fine.

Go to Ubuntu and stay with the same packages for six months.

Or go to Debian Paleolithic and stay with the same packages for four years.

Arch is not for you.

Last edited by wantilles (2008-01-26 03:32:24)

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#82 2008-01-26 04:40:14

peart
Member
From: Kanuckistan
Registered: 2003-07-28
Posts: 510

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

I wish the people who post in this thread would lose the the idea that someone is trying to steal their Arch and turn it into Ubuntu or Debian.  Arch is going to remain what it is.  The people who are trying to set up Arch Stable are trying to set up a repository, so the wiki says.

If they set up a repo, and make it available to the public, you are free to ignore it if you want.  I have no clue how people jump to the conclusion that this will fundamentally change Arch...

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#83 2008-01-26 05:47:38

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

peart wrote:

Arch is going to remain what it is.  The people who are trying to set up Arch Stable are trying to set up a repository, so the wiki says.

If they set up a repo, and make it available to the public, you are free to ignore it if you want.  I have no clue how people jump to the conclusion that this will fundamentally change Arch...

This is not true.

Why?

Simply for practical matters.

Manpower.

Arch is a small community as it is.

Making another repository means a whole new (third) set of packages. Now we have two sets of packages:

a. testing
b. core - extra - community

The third proposed in this thread will become:

c. stable

That means a lot of extra manpower in order to make, test and deploy a whole new set of packages aka it is extra work. And the amount of people that are available to do it are the same. Which means that a portion of the attention, detail, manhours and manpower that currently goes into the quality testing of core - extra - community will shift to this stable repo. And the quality of the currently rock-stable packages  into core - extra - community will be considerably degraded.

Nobody wants that.

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#84 2008-01-26 08:35:55

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

wantilles - this initiative comes from the community, not from the Arch development team. Any work that is done to move this forward will be the responsibility of the Arch users who are interested enough to do it, and it will not impact in any way on the current workload and responsibilities of the Arch development team. It will also not influence the underlying philosophy and principles of Arch.

Clear enough?

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#85 2008-01-26 12:22:18

RedShift
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-07-16
Posts: 230

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

tomk wrote:

wantilles - this initiative comes from the community, not from the Arch development team. Any work that is done to move this forward will be the responsibility of the Arch users who are interested enough to do it, and it will not impact in any way on the current workload and responsibilities of the Arch development team. It will also not influence the underlying philosophy and principles of Arch.

Clear enough?

I think the most fear is that the developpers will start to see "core" as testing grounds, in the thought that everybody should follow "stable".


:?

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#86 2008-01-26 12:36:37

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

RedShift wrote:

I think the most fear is that the developpers will start to see "core" as testing grounds, in the thought that everybody should follow "stable".

My thoughts exactly.

The instant we do this, we become Debian Paleolithic.

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#87 2008-01-26 20:05:29

Nihathrael
Member
From: Freising, Germany
Registered: 2007-10-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Hey everyone, just a little heads up for all your people worrying that we are going to make arch like ubuntu or whatever.

First of all, the stable project will not even contain a xorg server + any desktop from the start, as it is aimed at servers and not at desktop use. Maybe over time we will add some desktop managers, but that will be discussed when the time is right.
Also the repository can not be used with other repositories like community/extra/core, as we will keep our versions fixed and compile everything against our own core, leading to problems eventually if you use the "normal" repositories.

Please follow the mailing list(link on the wiki) for up-to-date information on the project!


Unknown Horizons - Open source real-time strategy game with the comfy Anno 1602 feeling!

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#88 2008-01-26 21:17:17

ihavenoname
Member
Registered: 2006-01-09
Posts: 198

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Nihathrael wrote:

Hey everyone, just a little heads up for all your people worrying that we are going to make arch like ubuntu or whatever.

First of all, the stable project will not even contain a xorg server + any desktop from the start, as it is aimed at servers and not at desktop use. Maybe over time we will add some desktop managers, but that will be discussed when the time is right.
Also the repository can not be used with other repositories like community/extra/core, as we will keep our versions fixed and compile everything against our own core, leading to problems eventually if you use the "normal" repositories.

Please follow the mailing list(link on the wiki) for up-to-date information on the project!

hmm, I was a fan of this at first but this worries me. Your breaking binary compatibility with the main arch os? Is this because you will be using different versions of packages and thus won't be able to maintain compatablitiy between the versions? Is there anyway a second unsupported? Well, in that case I think an easy method should be enabled that would allow people to manually compile those packages. Like an abs tree or something along those lines.


In this land of the pain the sane lose not knowing they were part of the game.

~LP

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#89 2008-01-26 21:47:42

Nihathrael
Member
From: Freising, Germany
Registered: 2007-10-21
Posts: 82
Website

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

ihavenoname wrote:
Nihathrael wrote:

Hey everyone, just a little heads up for all your people worrying that we are going to make arch like ubuntu or whatever.

First of all, the stable project will not even contain a xorg server + any desktop from the start, as it is aimed at servers and not at desktop use. Maybe over time we will add some desktop managers, but that will be discussed when the time is right.
Also the repository can not be used with other repositories like community/extra/core, as we will keep our versions fixed and compile everything against our own core, leading to problems eventually if you use the "normal" repositories.

Please follow the mailing list(link on the wiki) for up-to-date information on the project!

hmm, I was a fan of this at first but this worries me. Your breaking binary compatibility with the main arch os? Is this because you will be using different versions of packages and thus won't be able to maintain compatablitiy between the versions? Is there anyway a second unsupported? Well, in that case I think an easy method should be enabled that would allow people to manually compile those packages. Like an abs tree or something along those lines.

An abs tree of the stable packages will, of course, be provided.

The compatibility can not be totally maintained, as over time for example our glibc version would differ from the one used in the official repos. Minor differences might not be all to problematic, but major differences will definitely cause problems. So at the beginning of a stable release, probably almost everything will work from the official repos, as times goes by and differences in the version numbers get bigger, problems will probably occur. We will start of with a snapshot of the offical arch core repo, so differences are small/none at the beginning.

Anyway, users of stable can always use PKGBUILDs from the official abs tree and compile the piece of software they like for the stable core.

Please note that we will not only provide the core, we will provide some extra packages(those commonly used by servers), like apache etc.


Unknown Horizons - Open source real-time strategy game with the comfy Anno 1602 feeling!

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#90 2008-01-26 22:47:32

RedShift
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-07-16
Posts: 230

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Keeping older package versions will *NOT* create a more "stable" system. MrElending put it nicely on IRC why people's systems may break:

<MrElendig> RedShift: people are 1. not reading the news. 2. not reading pacman output 3. not running -Syu regulary 4. installing stuff by hand


:?

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#91 2008-01-27 07:11:19

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

RedShift wrote:

Keeping older package versions will *NOT* create a more "stable" system. MrElending put it nicely on IRC why people's systems may break:

<MrElendig> RedShift: people are 1. not reading the news. 2. not reading pacman output 3. not running -Syu regulary 4. installing stuff by hand

Superbly said, both of you, RedShift and MrElendig.

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#92 2008-01-27 10:42:50

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

RedShift wrote:

I think the most fear is that the developpers will start to see "core" as testing grounds, in the thought that everybody should follow "stable".

If people choose to fear something that hasn't happened, isn't happening, and will never happen, there's nothing more I can say. roll

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#93 2008-01-27 21:57:08

ihavenoname
Member
Registered: 2006-01-09
Posts: 198

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Honestly people, if a group from the community wants to take arch and try something new with it we should support them all the way. The amount of negative comments I have read is quite perplexing. YOU aren't the ones who will have to put the effort in, YOU aren't being forced to use arch-stable, YOU aren't going to be affected at all.  The fact is that some people made a request/suggestion and then, unlike 99% of other people who suggest/complain about things, they decided to act on it. So if your not interested in the project then you shouldn't waste your time putting it down. I understand that there is a difference between question how it's being done, that is fine as it might bring up issues that they have not thought about, but putting it down completely isn't useful. Especially since a lot of the issues are hypothetical. How do we know it's not going to make a difference for people if it hasn't been done yet?

To the people who are working on this, hats off to you for DOING something, in the world of FOSS Code speaks louder than actions. It's refreshing to see you not only raising issues you want to see resolved, but actually doing something about them. Good luck to you!


In this land of the pain the sane lose not knowing they were part of the game.

~LP

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#94 2008-01-27 22:26:24

jacko
Member
Registered: 2007-11-23
Posts: 840

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Hate to be the barer of bad news, but unless u run a server then arch linux - stable will not be for you, Not in the beginning, at least.

All  of you are right, to have a 'stable' desktop arch seems stupid, I couldn't agree more. But, when it comes to servers in particular, then there is a great need for a 'stable' branch. Servers need do one thing well, just work, and that isn't necessarily something u get with a rolling release system. Just look at the number of times I have updated kernel26 package in the last month, that requires a full restart, does a server need this sort of maintenance? Not if  its just to add new experimental functionality for wireless support.

most people in this thread with the negative comments probably don't even need a 'stable' server setup. Not really sure why they feel so strongly about it. Arch is going no where, because without arch, arch-stable will never come to light.

So before anyone else decides to speak there opinion, read the mailing list archives as suggested to understand the arch-stable scope of the project.

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#95 2008-01-28 09:49:45

ProzacR
Member
Registered: 2007-04-29
Posts: 272

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

I use arch Linux on my both computers as main os and I have no problems.
And I do not think that trying to make one more Debian with Pacman gives something.

And jacko you talk like someone is forsing you to update. Ok if it is just expermental blabla so press N, or do not waste webDL with Syu at all.

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#96 2008-01-28 13:09:40

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

RedShift wrote:

Keeping older package versions will *NOT* create a more "stable" system. MrElending put it nicely on IRC why people's systems may break:

<MrElendig> RedShift: people are 1. not reading the news. 2. not reading pacman output 3. not running -Syu regulary 4. installing stuff by hand

That attitude is plain arrogant. Look through the bug tracker, countless kernels, and other software have had buggy releases, even after an extensive time in [testing].

Further, as this project stands now, there's no way it would turn [core] into a testing ground. For two reasons
- That's why we have [testing] - duh
- This project is not an official project

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#97 2008-01-28 14:24:13

xnooby2
Member
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 104

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Maybe call it "Arch Server" instead of "Arch Stable".

Servers have to stay "up", and changing them as little as possible is the best way to do that.  The last thing an admin wants is to get an unwanted software upgrade while trying to just stay current with security fixes.  A new version of software that includes new config file formats will often have to be manually tweaked.  There are a lot of Unix admins who wont even consider using a distro that doesn't have a "stable" mode.

Maybe Arch simply is not for the servers, and that is fine - but don't expect real admins to throw out the idea of stability.  Stability, or "uptime", is often the main criteria of their job reviews.  When I say "real admin" I mean people responsible for maintaining 20-200 boxen, not the people running their parents biz on 1-2 boxen.

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#98 2008-01-28 19:35:40

jacko
Member
Registered: 2007-11-23
Posts: 840

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

Stability, or "uptime", is often the main criteria of their job reviews.(admin)

exactly, and they should have a stable branch to work from, with version releases of software frozen w/ security/bug fixes over a certain timed interval.

BTW, I never said archlinux-stable wouldn't be offering a desktop version, its just not in the mainstream thinking of the project scope at this time. This part of the project would be best tackled, if at all after we have a good 'base'.

And jacko you talk like someone is forcing you to update.

No, but I update daily here all the time, that is the idea of a rolling release system, to keep up to date with everything, even if that means something gets broke. If you fail to use the system as is designed, then u aren't really truly using a rolling release cutting edge version, since packages do update daily, maybe more then one time a day.

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#99 2008-01-28 20:02:36

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

tomk wrote:
RedShift wrote:

I think the most fear is that the developpers will start to see "core" as testing grounds, in the thought that everybody should follow "stable".

If people choose to fear something that hasn't happened, isn't happening, and will never happen, there's nothing more I can say. roll

America?

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#100 2008-01-29 13:22:29

codemac
Member
From: Cliche Tech Place
Registered: 2005-05-13
Posts: 794
Website

Re: Arch needs Stable-Snapshots!

phrakture wrote:
tomk wrote:

If people choose to fear something that hasn't happened, isn't happening, and will never happen, there's nothing more I can say. roll

America?

Damn!

Join me, I'm moving to Mexico.  I'd move to Canada, but they don't have the burritos.

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