Re: [Vectorlinux-devel] Repo suggestions for discussion

[John B <joh...@gm...>]

Here are my $2.00 on the matter.

On 10/5/06, Jose J. Rodriguez <jo...@gm...> wrote:
> During the repo overhaul I was doing today I came up with some
> suggestions and questions about possible changes to the repo
> structure. I'd like to discuss them here:
>
> Suggestions:
>
> - symlink cleanold, makeinfo-slack, makeinfo-slapt from each category
> to centralize fixes.

This makes sense. I would suggest that the master scripts be kept in
the /home/vectorlinux directory rather than in the repo proper.

> - rename testing/ to unstable/ (this should be for development (cvs,
> alpha, beta) versions of apps, libs, etc.)
> - create a new, possibly unstructured testing/ category, but only for
> temp storage of packages to be checked for correctness.

Maybe just keep testing as is and add an unstable directory for cvs stuff, etc.

> - rename kdei/ to kdei18/

No problem with that.

> - unclassified/ should be holding place till decided whether to put in
> unstable or extras.
> - extras/unclassified/: temp holding place (try not to abuse this).
> - unstable/unclassified/: temp holding place (try not to abuse this).
> - packages/unclassified/: temp holding place (try not to abuse this).

The only issue here is that the makeinfo-slapt and makeinfo-slack
scripts traverse the directory tree from the packages level. If we're
going to have an "unclassified" directory, I think it would be best to
keep it at the same level as the "packages" directory. That way, those
unclassified items aren't made available via slapt-get or gslapt until
decisions are made.

> - move the iso directories outside the package repos, to a
> version-separated structure inside a top-level iso/ category.
>

I have mixed thoughts on this one, so I'll pass for now.

>
> Questions:
>
> - rename packages to stable ???

This might not matter too much.

> - rename base/ to libs/ (because stable/ already means the package is
> in the iso and will be used in distro-upgrade, also base and base-apps
> would be misleading in extra/ and unstable/) ???
> - rename base-apps/ to apps/ (same reason as above) ???

The major problem with making those two changes is that I have patched
slapt-get for VL Dynamite so that the dist-upgrade mechanism will
work. I've used base$ as the regex for slapt-get's searches. (For the
slack repos, a$ is the search regex, which would search both the a and
ap directories.) Also see the following from the slapt-get FAQ located
at http://software.jaos.org/BUILD/slapt-get/FAQ.html#slgFAQ9 -

9.  Can I "dist-upgrade" to a newer Slackware release?

 Yes. See also http://slackwiki.org/Upgrade_Using_Slapt-get.

 Change your source location within /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc to point to
 the newer release directory.  --update your local package cache, then
 --dist-upgrade to the newer release.  You will also want to disable any
 third party package sources while upgrading to a newer release due to the fact
 that third party packages might not be as rigorously tested as official
 packages, or may cause conflicts with files provided by official packages.

 For instance, you have the following line as your source:

   SOURCE=ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/slackware-9.0/

 Simply change the URL to point to current, like so:

   SOURCE=ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware/slackware-current/

 CAVEAT: Follow the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT.

 Now you --dist-upgrade to retrieve the package data for that release.
 What dist-upgrade does is basically make sure that any missing packages
 from the base disk set are installed, as well as upgrade to any newer
 versions of the currently installed packages.  All of this happens in
 one transaction.

 dist-upgrade'ing involves doing the following:

   ### upgrade your local package cache
   $ slapt-get --update

   ### first, download all of the packages prior to upgrading
   $ slapt-get --dist-upgrade --download-only

   ### second, install (not upgrade!) the newest kernel
   $ slapt-get --install kernel --no-upgrade

   ### then, upgrade the most important
   #(this installs any newer versions)
   $ slapt-get --install glibc-solibs pkgtools sed

 In newer versions of slapt-get, dist-upgrade automatically handles
 installing/upgrading glibc-solibs, pkgtools, and sed prior to any
 other changes.

   ### finally, let slapt-get upgrade the rest
   $ slapt-get --dist-upgrade

  You can specify --remove-obsolete to remove all depreciated packages.
  CAUTION: this can only take into consideration packages that are available
  from your current sources.  Thus self made packages will be considered
  obsolete as well (they can be excluded within slapt-getrc, however).  Only
  use this if you have been using Slackware packages exclusively.  You can
  also use this option for information purposes, observing the obsolete
  packages, then passing all the ones you are sure of to --remove (which can
  accept multiple packages at once).
   ### dist upgrade and remove all depreciated/obsolete packages
   $ slapt-get --dist-upgrade --remove-obsolete

 Then follow the rest of the directions in UPGRADE.TXT.

 You should make sure any new packages within the disk sets you are using are
 also installed, as they will not be detected during --dist-upgrade, as only
 packages already installed will be upgraded.  To accomplish this, you can
 specify slapt-get to install a disk set like so:

   ### install all X and X application packages
   $ slapt-get --install-set x xap

 Do the same for all your installed disk sets, such as gnome, x, xap, l, n, etc.

As Jason explained to me, slapt-get needs to parse the a and ap
directories for Slackware (analogous to our base and base-apps
directories) so that the packages that are the real base of the distro
are upgraded correctly. Of course this also means we would need to
have all of the packages that are used on the ISO in the repository.


>
> Regards,
> Joe1962

Again, just my $2.00,
JohnB