Re: compiling potato packages on slink (Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?)

[Mark Brown]

On Thu, Aug 26, 1999 at 03:38:50PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Which reminds me, building source packages is really not as easy as
> one would hope it to be.  

> I had to go through some contortions to build the potato ssh-1.2.27
> package on slink.  Example: The perl5 dependency had to be edited to
> make it a perl dependency.  libgmp2 had to be edited to gmp2.  A bunch

Surely the gmp dependancy should be generated by shlibdeps?

> of fake PAM dependencies had to be removed...  ssh-ask control section

I'd imagine that the PAM dependancies are needed on Potato, which uses
PAM.

> had to be removed since I was compiling on a non-X machine.  I had to
> find a bunch of packages required for compilation by trial and
> error...

Have you seen the source dependancies proposal that either just got
accepted as policy or is about to?  They should deal with the "what do I
need for this package" problem.  The current best practice is to put a
note in the package (I use debian/README.source) if anything wierd is
required for compilation, but it's not at all well established.

Dealing with building and installing on an old distribution is *much*
harder - the packages for unstable are supposed to work with unstable,
not on a generic system.  If the packages depended upon change then 
what happens?  If it's a simple renaming one could depend upon the old
package or the new package, but if it's totally new functionality that's
more than a shared library (such dependancies are generally figured out
at build time) you've got to put it in the dependancies explicitly.

Similarly for generating only part of a given source package - how much
configurability should be required?

> BSD does kind of spoil you that way.

How does BSD handle changes in packages, or dependancies on new
packages?  I've got a feeling that BSD is solving a different problem to
the one Debian does.

-- 
Mark Brown  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]   (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/


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compiling potato packages on slink (Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?)

[navindra]

> . . . why?  What's the purpose of making everything on machines
> running stable un-upgradable until some obscure Perl bug is worked
> out?  I just don't follow.

Which reminds me, building source packages is really not as easy as
one would hope it to be.  

I had to go through some contortions to build the potato ssh-1.2.27
package on slink.  Example: The perl5 dependency had to be edited to
make it a perl dependency.  libgmp2 had to be edited to gmp2.  A bunch
of fake PAM dependencies had to be removed...  ssh-ask control section
had to be removed since I was compiling on a non-X machine.  I had to
find a bunch of packages required for compilation by trial and
error...

BSD does kind of spoil you that way.

-N.

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Daniel Barclay]

> From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


> On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Daniel Barclay wrote:
> 
> > > From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > 
> > ..
> > > That's the choice Debian offers: a rock-solid system with _slightly_
> > > out-of-date software (although you're free to upgrade it), or a
> > > state-of-the-art system with all the bugs inherent in the bleeding edge.
> > 
> > But why not build the latest-and-greatest version of add-on packages
> > against BOTH the stable and the latest-and-greatest unstable
> > distribution?
> > 
> > Then later versions of software (even if they're not long-tested
> > and stable) could be run on the stable distribution.
> 
> Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a stable distribution? 

Not at all.  I don't know how you misunderstood.  

The stable distribution would be the same as it is (e.g., with an
older glibc and other base system files, and applications).

The unstable distribution would be the same as it is (with new
version of everything).

The addition would be new versions of packages compiled against core 
libraries in the stable distribution (instead of against the unstable
distribution).


Then instead of having two choices, everything stable but aged,
or everything new but unstable, one could try current (even if
unstable) versions of a few packages without having to upgrade
the ENTIRE system to unstable.




> If you want the
> latest, go with unstable, that's what it's there for  

No, it's there to provide the latest _whole system_.



> ..Or if you want
> to mix and match, feel free to grab the debian sources and build the
> packages yourself. 

Yeah, that's something I need to learn to do.  



> > Note that that's what various other sites (Gnome, someone's KDE site,
> > etc.) provide--recent individual software that doesn't require 
> > the more recent, unstable distribution.
> 
> That's their perrogative.


Look, do you people want Debian to be used or not?  Do you know how
many references I've seen recently that mention that Debian is 
farther behind (in versions of packages available) than other distributions?


Daniel

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Daniel Barclay]

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Hartmut Figge]

Brian Servis wrote:

> If you want something that is only available in the unstable tree you
> can always build the source archive against your current setup, it is
> fairly straight forward with the Debian source archives.

but there are problems with some packages, e.g. postfix-0.0.19990627
refuses to compile on my slink. eventually i will look later for the
reason.

-- 
hafi

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Martin Bialasinski]

** "Brad" == Brad  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Brad> On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Daniel Barclay wrote:

>> But why not build the latest-and-greatest version of add-on
>> packages against BOTH the stable and the latest-and-greatest
>> unstable distribution?

>> Then later versions of software (even if they're not long-tested
>> and stable) could be run on the stable distribution.

Brad> Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a stable distribution? If
Brad> you want the latest, go with unstable, that's what it's there
Brad> for (and don't forget to submit any bugs you find! That's also
Brad> what it's there for).

Not always. It is nice to have the latest X packages (simply because
much in hardware support has been added since the slink release) or
GNOME (slink ships with 0.30), without the trouble of moving
completely to unstable (glibc and perl comes to mind).

And there are developers, who have the time, resources and will to do
recompiles. I spoke to Wichert about this matter, and he says it is
more a matter of a missing stable release management. There is a need
for someone with enough knowledge and dedication to handle this. Such
updates could then be handled by a seperate section in the archives
"update packs" or such (and the infrastructure like dinstall has to be
extended).

Brad> Or if you want to mix and match, feel free to grab the debian
Brad> sources and build the packages yourself.

Sure. Although it is sometimes not that easy without source
dependancies. One has to be able to interpret the errors, sometimes
more packages from unstable are needed (autoconf, automake comes to
mind), which themself might pull more packages and so on.

Ciao,
Martin

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Brad]

On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Daniel Barclay wrote:

> > From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> ..
> > That's the choice Debian offers: a rock-solid system with _slightly_
> > out-of-date software (although you're free to upgrade it), or a
> > state-of-the-art system with all the bugs inherent in the bleeding edge.
> 
> But why not build the latest-and-greatest version of add-on packages
> against BOTH the stable and the latest-and-greatest unstable
> distribution?
> 
> Then later versions of software (even if they're not long-tested
> and stable) could be run on the stable distribution.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a stable distribution? If you want the
latest, go with unstable, that's what it's there for (and don't forget to
submit any bugs you find! That's also what it's there for). Or if you want
to mix and match, feel free to grab the debian sources and build the
packages yourself. If you don't know how, check the archives; instructions
have been posted many times before.

> Note that that's what various other sites (Gnome, someone's KDE site,
> etc.) provide--recent individual software that doesn't require 
> the more recent, unstable distribution.

That's their perrogative.

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Brian Servis]

*- On 31 Jul, Daniel Barclay wrote about "Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?"
> 
> 
>> From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> ..
>> That's the choice Debian offers: a rock-solid system with _slightly_
>> out-of-date software (although you're free to upgrade it), or a
>> state-of-the-art system with all the bugs inherent in the bleeding edge.
> 
> But why not build the latest-and-greatest version of add-on packages
> against BOTH the stable and the latest-and-greatest unstable
> distribution?
> 

Because this all takes time and resources to provide.  Remember that
Debian is a purely volenteer project, this includes both human time and
computer resources.  Many Debian developers do not have the resources
to provide versions for both stable and unstable, recall, to build a
stable and unstable binary you have to have a stable and unstable
system to build it against.  Those that are providing the archives are
also doing so on a volenteer basis and if they are developers themselves
then they must have the resources to build the versions for stable as
well as have an unstable system to build the new packages for the
current unstable. 

If you want something that is only available in the unstable tree you
can always build the source archive against your current setup, it is
fairly straight forward with the Debian source archives.

-- 
Brian 
-
Mechanical Engineering  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Purdue University   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
-

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Daniel Barclay]

> From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

..
> That's the choice Debian offers: a rock-solid system with _slightly_
> out-of-date software (although you're free to upgrade it), or a
> state-of-the-art system with all the bugs inherent in the bleeding edge.

But why not build the latest-and-greatest version of add-on packages
against BOTH the stable and the latest-and-greatest unstable
distribution?

Then later versions of software (even if they're not long-tested
and stable) could be run on the stable distribution.


Note that that's what various other sites (Gnome, someone's KDE site,
etc.) provide--recent individual software that doesn't require 
the more recent, unstable distribution.



Daniel

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Brad]

On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Carl Fink wrote:

> It seems to me that there's no way to install either KDE or GNOME
> using the current stable release.  Apparently once a release is
> "frozen" all new versions of .deb archives are created for unstable,
> which in this case means using glibc 2.1 . . . which means that you
> can't actually use them on a stable machine, because there's no
> approved way of upgrading to glibc 2.1 on stable that I can locate.

You can use them on a stable machine. As others have written, some people
have built slink debs of the latest Gnome and KDE.

And if they hadn't, you could still always compile from source.

> . . . why?  What's the purpose of making everything on machines
> running stable un-upgradable until some obscure Perl bug is worked
> out?  I just don't follow.

Stable is just that: a distribution where everything is in a known state,
where you can install the system and be reasonably sure all the software
will work and will work together without horrible conflicts. If you
install a stable system, nothing should have any major bugs that will keep
you from using the system. The only sure way to do this is to use software
that has been tried and tested together with all the other software in
the distro.

Unstable is also just that: it's a distribution with the latest and
greatest software. The latest and greatest often has bugs to work out, for
example the perl thing that's been causing so much trouble (yesterday
there were only 3 packages i wanted that weren't fixed, so i built them
from source with 'fixed' dependancies). But even though potato was
severely borken for a while, anyone could come along and use slink without
those problems.

That's the choice Debian offers: a rock-solid system with _slightly_
out-of-date software (although you're free to upgrade it), or a
state-of-the-art system with all the bugs inherent in the bleeding edge.

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Mark Brown]

On Sat, Jul 24, 1999 at 08:00:36PM -0400, Carl Fink wrote:

> It seems to me that there's no way to install either KDE or GNOME
> using the current stable release.  Apparently once a release is
> "frozen" all new versions of .deb archives are created for unstable,
> which in this case means using glibc 2.1 . . . which means that you
> can't actually use them on a stable machine, because there's no
> approved way of upgrading to glibc 2.1 on stable that I can locate.

"apt-get install package" will pull in the package and all dependancies
(FWIW, perl seems to be sorting itself out - I just upgraded perl on my
router the other day without problems) without disturbing other things.
Debian supports partial upgradability - you should only need to upgrade
individual packages when forced to by dependancies.

In any case, you don't need to go to unstable - take a look at the
installation instructions for Debian, which point to an archive of
packages for stable on the GNOME FTP site.  I've been using this quite
happily for a while now.  The base apt line is

  deb ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/gnome-1.0/debian slink main

but it would obviously be better to use a mirror.

> . . . why?  What's the purpose of making everything on machines
> running stable un-upgradable until some obscure Perl bug is worked
> out?  I just don't follow.

The perl upgrade annoied quite a few developers too.  However, part of
the point with unstable is that it's where new development goes on.
While the idea is to avoid and work out bugs, they can appear -
particularly if (as in this case) a large number of packages are
affected and need to be synced.

In any case, you don't need to do a full upgrade - you'll only be bitten
by the perl change if you upgrade perl related packages.

> Is there a way to try KDE/GNOME on stable that I'm missing?  I did
> some fairly extensive searches via www.debian.org's package search
> engine.  I should specify that I want a reasonably new release of
> either, not the alpha GNOME in stable.

See above for GNOME.  I don't know (or care, for that matter :-) ) about
KDE, but people have been posting some references to aptable archives.

-- 
Mark Brown  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]   (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/


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Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Brian Servis]

*- On 24 Jul, Carl Fink wrote about "No KDE/GNOME for stable?"
> Pardon me if this has been hashed and rehashed:  I haven't seen it on
> the Usenet linux.debian.user, but I know not every message gets
> gatewayed.  I did a search on the archive and found nothing.
> 

Add the following to your apt sources.list

deb http://kde.tdyc.com slink kde
deb ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/gnome-1.0/debian slink main

> It seems to me that there's no way to install either KDE or GNOME
> using the current stable release.  Apparently once a release is
> "frozen" all new versions of .deb archives are created for unstable,
> which in this case means using glibc 2.1 . . . which means that you
> can't actually use them on a stable machine, because there's no
> approved way of upgrading to glibc 2.1 on stable that I can locate.
> 
> . . . why?  What's the purpose of making everything on machines
> running stable un-upgradable until some obscure Perl bug is worked
> out?  I just don't follow.
> 
> Is there a way to try KDE/GNOME on stable that I'm missing?  I did
> some fairly extensive searches via www.debian.org's package search
> engine.  I should specify that I want a reasonably new release of
> either, not the alpha GNOME in stable.
> 

>From http://www.debian.org/releases/slink/

"Unofficial Updates
 
 Released Debian versions are generally not updated, except in the case 
 of critical errors or security issues. However, for user convenience, 
 there are certain updated packages which are made available." 


Several reasons that I can think of why this is true.  If the developers
kept updating stable then they would be introducing new bugs and would
never get a chance to prepare unstable for release.  At some point they
have to stop working on one release and move on to the next.  The sites
above are done by gracious individuals who have built versions of
packages for slink. With regards to KDE and Qt v1, they were removed
from all official Debian mirrors and Redhat mirrors, See
http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19981008 for all the
reasons.

-- 
Brian 
-
Mechanical Engineering  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Purdue University   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
-

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Phil Dyer]

Carl Fink wrote:

> Is there a way to try KDE/GNOME on stable that I'm missing?  I did
> some fairly extensive searches via www.debian.org's package search
> engine.  I should specify that I want a reasonably new release of
> either, not the alpha GNOME in stable.
>

Doing a search on the archives of:
KDE; slink
yielded me this for my first result. ;-)

--snip--
add one of these lines to /etc/apt/sources.list
  deb http://snowcrash.tdyc.com potato kde contrib rkrusty
if you're running "unstable" or
  deb http://snowcrash.tdyc.com slink kde contrib rkrusty
if you're running "stable" (Debian 2.1)
--snip--

I'm running KDE 1.1.1 on slink and loving it!

--

dyer

Re: No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[egm2]

Did you look at:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/gnome

Supposedly there are a bunch of Slink built gnome progs.
-- 

Eric G. Miller
Powered by the POTATO (http://www.debian.org)!

No KDE/GNOME for stable?

[Carl Fink]

Pardon me if this has been hashed and rehashed:  I haven't seen it on
the Usenet linux.debian.user, but I know not every message gets
gatewayed.  I did a search on the archive and found nothing.

It seems to me that there's no way to install either KDE or GNOME
using the current stable release.  Apparently once a release is
"frozen" all new versions of .deb archives are created for unstable,
which in this case means using glibc 2.1 . . . which means that you
can't actually use them on a stable machine, because there's no
approved way of upgrading to glibc 2.1 on stable that I can locate.

. . . why?  What's the purpose of making everything on machines
running stable un-upgradable until some obscure Perl bug is worked
out?  I just don't follow.

Is there a way to try KDE/GNOME on stable that I'm missing?  I did
some fairly extensive searches via www.debian.org's package search
engine.  I should specify that I want a reasonably new release of
either, not the alpha GNOME in stable.

Thanks.
-- 
Carl Fink   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Manager, Dueling Modems Computer Forum