Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[stewart mackenzie]

Welcome Stefan,

Put all that stuff aside for the moment, just a moment, and work your way
through this tutorial https://nixcloud.io/tour/?id=1. If once done, you
decide nix isn't for you then drop it. If something switches on in your
head keep at it cause you'll now have all the tools needed to unlock nix/os.

Any other method other than learning the language is a waste of time IMHO,
fortunately nix is a very nice language and will make your fingertip an
order of magnitude more powerful.

kr/sjm
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Stefan Huchler]

Hello Roger,

first thanks for the answer, second I dont even understand what you are
saying :)

You seem to think that I read all manpages of all nix*-tools 20 times,
and maybe 1 2 books on nixos.

I mean yes I know nix(os) is not only a package manager, but a kind of
configuration system, so maybe I am supposed to have a MUCH harder
learning curve.

I am a emacs user so I thought I am kind of used to that, but heck you
nixos guys all talk like spanish to me.

I kind of have a partial idea what it could mean what you are saying,
but even if I am right, I would have no idea how to do that.


That version of flexget seems to run, in a old boot-configuration:

/nix/store/61lmhiim2bhw3i76c7aq0xr7i6zgfcv8-python2.7-FlexGet-1.2.337/bin/.flexget-wrapped

btw why are there 20 entries in grub bug nix-env --list-generations
shows me only 2?

so is there a way to link my current installation or a new updated
profile to that flexget version?

Thanks



Roger Qiu  writes:

> Hey, I'd suggest for you to not use channels. I don't. Pin your nixpkgs to a 
> commit hash. And upgrade when
> you want to/need to. This should be the recommended way IMHO.
>
> On 11/02/2017 10:07 AM, "Stefan Huchler"  wrote:
>
>  Hello,
>
>  I start to get frustrated again, the documentation of nixos is not very
>  good if you do more than just the most basic stuff.
>
>  So you kind of are if you are not a full-time nixos developer dependend
>  of help from the developers.
>
>  So I wrote here about the bug, then I startet a bugreport:
>
>  https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/22246
>
>  Nothing happens at all. Well nobody else does anything about lets try to
>  find a workaround.
>
>  I dont even care anymore if it is a imperative solution or anything, its
>  just absolutly inaccaptable that there not even any workaround.
>
>  I may have a different bug now after maybe installing a different
>  version (unstable) of flexget, now its with beautifulsoup.
>
>  nix-env -f
>  https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels/archive/nixos-unstable.tar.gz
>  -i python2.7-FlexGet-1.2.337
>
>  I did that. Now I get the next error, how can that be such a big big bug
>  in every channels and completly broken and no real solution there, if a
>  change messes up such huge stuff cant you revert it?
>
>  in other distros I would use just python-pip and it would work, now you
>  took the challenge on you to manage that, but if that leads to MORE
>  problems then pip already has, it really sucks.
>
>  I still dont get how you can brake working things just cause of some minor
>  security problems.
>
>  And of course some bad things happen, but at least give either a fast
>  fix or as alternative any workaround.
>
>  There are 85 mio nix* commands/options and config files, I am not a full-time
>  nixos developer, I dont understand all of that many different ways you
>  can do stuff.
>
>  So any help would be nice. I am a technicaly shurly keen guy, but I cant
>  reboot daily my machine for months, cause nobody of you experts can
>  invest 5-15 mins to fix that.
>
>  Sorry for whining but I am not used to me throwing brain and time after
>  something x times and nothing advances at all.
>
>  I dont want to be a 100% full time nixos developer / sysadmin just to
>  solve such stupid problem. Except somebody would pay me for that, then I
>  would think about it.
>
>  I guess its maybe a rare case that you have 2 versions that both dont
>  work 100%, so I cant just use a older version and wait months till you
>  fix that problem finaly. But even than it would suck cause I cant really
>  test new configurations in taht case.
>
>  I would try to learn nixos better, but the documentation is horrible. I
>  had 0 problems using, ubuntu / fedora / debian / archlinux / gentoo, but
>  the doku of nixos is horrible.
>
>  Heck if I want to know a package name I have to search on github for
>  package names and options.
>
>  So
>  1. bug reports dont work...
>  2. RTFM cant be done because the doku is horrible
>  3. mailing list seem to not work either?
>
>  Is that really what I have to expect?
>
>  Sorry for ranting here, I stopp now, but maybe some of that feedback
>  helps you to improve something, and maybe somebody could give me some
>  config lines or nix-env commands that gets flexget running again.
>
>  Graham Christensen  writes:
>
>  > I'm very sorry you've had a bad experience with breakage on stable. :( I
>  > use 16.09 myself.
>  >
>  >>> yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
>  >>> security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
>  >>> make releases pretty useless concept :)
>  >
>  > Roughly, this is why backports happen:
>  >
>  > - Security patches which aren't major updates
>  > - If a security patch is a major upgrade, try and find patches to our
>  > current version which accomplish the same goal. Apply the major
>  > update to master, and the 

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Roger Qiu]

Hey, I'd suggest for you to not use channels. I don't. Pin your nixpkgs to
a commit hash. And upgrade when you want to/need to. This should be the
recommended way IMHO.
On 11/02/2017 10:07 AM, "Stefan Huchler"  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I start to get frustrated again, the documentation of nixos is not very
> good if you do more than just the most basic stuff.
>
> So you kind of are if you are not a full-time nixos developer dependend
> of help from the developers.
>
> So I wrote here about the bug, then I startet a bugreport:
>
> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/22246
>
> Nothing happens at all. Well nobody else does anything about lets try to
> find a workaround.
>
> I dont even care anymore if it is a imperative solution or anything, its
> just absolutly inaccaptable that there not even any workaround.
>
> I may have a different bug now after maybe installing a different
> version (unstable) of flexget, now its with beautifulsoup.
>
> nix-env  -f
> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels/archive/nixos-unstable.tar.gz
> -i  python2.7-FlexGet-1.2.337
>
> I did that. Now I get the next error, how can that be such a big big bug
> in every channels and completly broken and no real solution there, if a
> change messes up such huge stuff cant you revert it?
>
> in other distros I would use just python-pip and it would work, now you
> took the challenge on you to manage that, but if that leads to MORE
> problems then pip already has, it really sucks.
>
> I still dont get how you can brake working things just cause of some minor
> security problems.
>
> And of course some bad things happen, but at least give either a fast
> fix or as alternative any workaround.
>
> There are 85 mio nix* commands/options and config files, I am not a
> full-time
> nixos developer, I dont understand all of that many different ways you
> can do stuff.
>
> So any help would be nice. I am a technicaly shurly keen guy, but I cant
> reboot daily my machine for months, cause nobody of you experts can
> invest 5-15 mins to fix that.
>
> Sorry for whining but I am not used to me throwing brain and time after
> something x times and nothing advances at all.
>
> I dont want to be a 100% full time nixos developer / sysadmin just to
> solve such stupid problem. Except somebody would pay me for that, then I
> would think about it.
>
> I guess its maybe a rare case that you have 2 versions that both dont
> work 100%, so I cant just use a older version and wait months till you
> fix that problem finaly. But even than it would suck cause I cant really
> test new configurations in taht case.
>
> I would try to learn nixos better, but the documentation is horrible. I
> had 0 problems using, ubuntu / fedora / debian / archlinux / gentoo, but
> the doku of nixos is horrible.
>
> Heck if I want to know a package name I have to search on github for
> package names and options.
>
> So
> 1. bug reports dont work...
> 2. RTFM cant be done because the doku is horrible
> 3. mailing list seem to not work either?
>
> Is that really what I have to expect?
>
> Sorry for ranting here, I stopp now, but maybe some of that feedback
> helps you to improve something, and maybe somebody could give me some
> config lines or nix-env commands that gets flexget running again.
>
> Graham Christensen  writes:
>
> > I'm very sorry you've had a bad experience with breakage on stable. :( I
> > use 16.09 myself.
> >
> >>> yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
> >>> security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
> >>> make releases pretty useless concept :)
> >
> > Roughly, this is why backports happen:
> >
> >  - Security patches which aren't major updates
> >  - If a security patch is a major upgrade, try and find patches to our
> >current version which accomplish the same goal. Apply the major
> >update to master, and the patches to stable.
> >  - Bug fixes to applications which, again, aren't major updates.
> >Generally be cautious about these.
> >  - Any updates when the current stable version is utterly broken. A key
> >example of this is Spotify, who regularly breaks their old versions.
> >  - Extremely security-sensitive software, in particular Chrome,
> >Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, and of course the kernel.
> >
> >>> Sorry I formulated that message a bit trollish, but just wanted to
> learn
> >>> why how releases are done in nixos.
> >
> > Please know that Freddy, Franz, Robin, Domen, myself, and the rest of
> > the people contributing to NixOS work very hard to keep the stable
> > version of NixOS working nicely. This is very important to us.
> >
> > It can be very stressful when preparing to backport changes, but it is
> > important to do them anyway. I try to think through impact and run tests
> > across a wide range of software to see what will break. We also try not
> > to backport any substantial changes, but instead smaller patches to
> > 

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Stefan Huchler]

Hello,

I start to get frustrated again, the documentation of nixos is not very
good if you do more than just the most basic stuff.

So you kind of are if you are not a full-time nixos developer dependend
of help from the developers.

So I wrote here about the bug, then I startet a bugreport:

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/22246

Nothing happens at all. Well nobody else does anything about lets try to
find a workaround.

I dont even care anymore if it is a imperative solution or anything, its
just absolutly inaccaptable that there not even any workaround.

I may have a different bug now after maybe installing a different
version (unstable) of flexget, now its with beautifulsoup.

nix-env  -f
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels/archive/nixos-unstable.tar.gz
-i  python2.7-FlexGet-1.2.337

I did that. Now I get the next error, how can that be such a big big bug
in every channels and completly broken and no real solution there, if a
change messes up such huge stuff cant you revert it?

in other distros I would use just python-pip and it would work, now you
took the challenge on you to manage that, but if that leads to MORE
problems then pip already has, it really sucks.

I still dont get how you can brake working things just cause of some minor
security problems.

And of course some bad things happen, but at least give either a fast
fix or as alternative any workaround.

There are 85 mio nix* commands/options and config files, I am not a full-time
nixos developer, I dont understand all of that many different ways you
can do stuff.

So any help would be nice. I am a technicaly shurly keen guy, but I cant
reboot daily my machine for months, cause nobody of you experts can
invest 5-15 mins to fix that.

Sorry for whining but I am not used to me throwing brain and time after
something x times and nothing advances at all.

I dont want to be a 100% full time nixos developer / sysadmin just to
solve such stupid problem. Except somebody would pay me for that, then I
would think about it.

I guess its maybe a rare case that you have 2 versions that both dont
work 100%, so I cant just use a older version and wait months till you
fix that problem finaly. But even than it would suck cause I cant really
test new configurations in taht case.

I would try to learn nixos better, but the documentation is horrible. I
had 0 problems using, ubuntu / fedora / debian / archlinux / gentoo, but
the doku of nixos is horrible.

Heck if I want to know a package name I have to search on github for
package names and options.

So
1. bug reports dont work...
2. RTFM cant be done because the doku is horrible
3. mailing list seem to not work either?

Is that really what I have to expect?

Sorry for ranting here, I stopp now, but maybe some of that feedback
helps you to improve something, and maybe somebody could give me some
config lines or nix-env commands that gets flexget running again.

Graham Christensen  writes:

> I'm very sorry you've had a bad experience with breakage on stable. :( I
> use 16.09 myself.
>
>>> yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
>>> security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
>>> make releases pretty useless concept :)
>
> Roughly, this is why backports happen:
>
>  - Security patches which aren't major updates
>  - If a security patch is a major upgrade, try and find patches to our
>current version which accomplish the same goal. Apply the major
>update to master, and the patches to stable. 
>  - Bug fixes to applications which, again, aren't major updates.
>Generally be cautious about these. 
>  - Any updates when the current stable version is utterly broken. A key
>example of this is Spotify, who regularly breaks their old versions. 
>  - Extremely security-sensitive software, in particular Chrome,
>Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, and of course the kernel.
>  
>>> Sorry I formulated that message a bit trollish, but just wanted to learn
>>> why how releases are done in nixos.
>
> Please know that Freddy, Franz, Robin, Domen, myself, and the rest of
> the people contributing to NixOS work very hard to keep the stable
> version of NixOS working nicely. This is very important to us. 
>
> It can be very stressful when preparing to backport changes, but it is
> important to do them anyway. I try to think through impact and run tests
> across a wide range of software to see what will break. We also try not
> to backport any substantial changes, but instead smaller patches to
> prevent breakage.
>
> When you do find breakage, please do promptly open an issue on send a
> report on the mailing list so we can address the problem and perhaps add
> testing to prevent it in the future. We're also quite accessible on the
> #nixos IRC channel on Freenode.
>
> If you would like to take part in the process of identifying and solving
> security problems on master and backporting to stable, we sure would
> love the extra 

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Stefan Huchler]

Hello Freddy,

yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
make releases pretty useless concept :)

So except you want security updates you dont have to update your system?
I think automated tests could fix that...

something like systemctl status flexget | grep running or something like
that.

Of course you cant write a test for every cornercase, but that bug seems
pretty obvious and easy to reproduce (install/upgrade flexget).

Sorry I formulated that message a bit trollish, but just wanted to learn
why how releases are done in nixos.

Also a hint why list-derivations and boot options in grub dont are the
same would be interesting? Maybe when I run gc or optimise they vanish
from grub?

Stefan


Freddy Rietdijk  writes:

> Hi Stefan,
>
> Regarding flexget. There were some security issues with an (indirect) 
> dependency, html5lib, and thus
> html5lib was upgraded. Maybe that broke flexget, I don't know. 
>
> The main issue is just a lack of maintainers. It's relatively straightforward 
> to add a package to Nixpkgs, but
> maintaining a package set this size that also keeps growing is becoming 
> increasingly harder.
>
> Freddy
>
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Stefan Huchler  
> wrote:
>
>  So because I dont need always newest versions on all of my boxes, I
>  selected the 16.xx chhannel.
>
>  There are here and there some minor issues as example kodi here and
>  there crashes maybe 1-3 times a week. Could be extentions or something.
>
>  For that and other reasons I update here and there all few weeks maybe
>  the maschine.
>
>  So one advantage of course is that if I notice that something does not
>  work I can boot a old configuration, so I dont have to deal with some
>  updates that broke stuff or rollback.
>
>  But I wonder how you can break relativly often stuff (at the moment
>  there seems to be a python dependency problem with flexget, that makes
>  the daemon crash), in a "stable" release channel.
>
>  I mean if I use debian, and stick to my "channel"/release, normaly
>  nothing breaks, as long as I use only their package installer, pip
>  updates of course broke stuff. If I use fedora, well I get maybe some
>  upstream changes like new kernel versions, but normaly they brake also
>  nothing.
>
>  So if "stable" channel makes updates that are not needed (the older
>  version of flexget works fine), whats the point or the criterias of
>  those releases? I could then just use the newest version, if I have to
>  relay on rollback / boot old versions anyway, I dont really see the
>  point of "stable" channels.
>
>  I had pretty good experiences with using the rolling channel, but had
>  many times break stuff in the stable channel.
>
>  Also the tools around generations / boot-generations is very confusing,
>  why do I have 3 4 options in the nix-env --list-generation overview but
>  20 in the boot menu.
>
>  But thats a 2nd different issue I guess.
>
>  Just wonder what your policies are.
>
>  Other stuff that broke on me in the past, was latex packages as example.
>
>  ___
>  nix-dev mailing list
>  nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
>  http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Graham Christensen]

I'm very sorry you've had a bad experience with breakage on stable. :( I
use 16.09 myself.

>> yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
>> security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
>> make releases pretty useless concept :)

Roughly, this is why backports happen:

 - Security patches which aren't major updates
 - If a security patch is a major upgrade, try and find patches to our
   current version which accomplish the same goal. Apply the major
   update to master, and the patches to stable. 
 - Bug fixes to applications which, again, aren't major updates.
   Generally be cautious about these. 
 - Any updates when the current stable version is utterly broken. A key
   example of this is Spotify, who regularly breaks their old versions. 
 - Extremely security-sensitive software, in particular Chrome,
   Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, and of course the kernel.
 
>> Sorry I formulated that message a bit trollish, but just wanted to learn
>> why how releases are done in nixos.

Please know that Freddy, Franz, Robin, Domen, myself, and the rest of
the people contributing to NixOS work very hard to keep the stable
version of NixOS working nicely. This is very important to us. 

It can be very stressful when preparing to backport changes, but it is
important to do them anyway. I try to think through impact and run tests
across a wide range of software to see what will break. We also try not
to backport any substantial changes, but instead smaller patches to
prevent breakage.

When you do find breakage, please do promptly open an issue on send a
report on the mailing list so we can address the problem and perhaps add
testing to prevent it in the future. We're also quite accessible on the
#nixos IRC channel on Freenode.

If you would like to take part in the process of identifying and solving
security problems on master and backporting to stable, we sure would
love the extra help -- feel free to comment on
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/21967 and I'll tag you on
Wednesday when I open the next roundup.

Best,
Graham Christensen
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Freddy Rietdijk]

> So except you want security updates you dont have to update your system? I
think automated tests could fix that...
>
> something like systemctl status flexget | grep running or something like
that.

Packages and modules preferably have tests. There were a couple of packages
broken because of the update, and if I recall correctly none had tests...

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 4:09 PM, Stefan Huchler 
wrote:

> Hello Freddy,
>
> yes I think that html5lib thing would it be. So it was at least a
> security fix, so you dont just update stuff to update it, which would
> make releases pretty useless concept :)
>
> So except you want security updates you dont have to update your system?
> I think automated tests could fix that...
>
> something like systemctl status flexget | grep running or something like
> that.
>
> Of course you cant write a test for every cornercase, but that bug seems
> pretty obvious and easy to reproduce (install/upgrade flexget).
>
> Sorry I formulated that message a bit trollish, but just wanted to learn
> why how releases are done in nixos.
>
> Also a hint why list-derivations and boot options in grub dont are the
> same would be interesting? Maybe when I run gc or optimise they vanish
> from grub?
>
> Stefan
>
>
> Freddy Rietdijk  writes:
>
> > Hi Stefan,
> >
> > Regarding flexget. There were some security issues with an (indirect)
> dependency, html5lib, and thus
> > html5lib was upgraded. Maybe that broke flexget, I don't know.
> >
> > The main issue is just a lack of maintainers. It's relatively
> straightforward to add a package to Nixpkgs, but
> > maintaining a package set this size that also keeps growing is becoming
> increasingly harder.
> >
> > Freddy
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Stefan Huchler 
> wrote:
> >
> >  So because I dont need always newest versions on all of my boxes, I
> >  selected the 16.xx chhannel.
> >
> >  There are here and there some minor issues as example kodi here and
> >  there crashes maybe 1-3 times a week. Could be extentions or something.
> >
> >  For that and other reasons I update here and there all few weeks maybe
> >  the maschine.
> >
> >  So one advantage of course is that if I notice that something does not
> >  work I can boot a old configuration, so I dont have to deal with some
> >  updates that broke stuff or rollback.
> >
> >  But I wonder how you can break relativly often stuff (at the moment
> >  there seems to be a python dependency problem with flexget, that makes
> >  the daemon crash), in a "stable" release channel.
> >
> >  I mean if I use debian, and stick to my "channel"/release, normaly
> >  nothing breaks, as long as I use only their package installer, pip
> >  updates of course broke stuff. If I use fedora, well I get maybe some
> >  upstream changes like new kernel versions, but normaly they brake also
> >  nothing.
> >
> >  So if "stable" channel makes updates that are not needed (the older
> >  version of flexget works fine), whats the point or the criterias of
> >  those releases? I could then just use the newest version, if I have to
> >  relay on rollback / boot old versions anyway, I dont really see the
> >  point of "stable" channels.
> >
> >  I had pretty good experiences with using the rolling channel, but had
> >  many times break stuff in the stable channel.
> >
> >  Also the tools around generations / boot-generations is very confusing,
> >  why do I have 3 4 options in the nix-env --list-generation overview but
> >  20 in the boot menu.
> >
> >  But thats a 2nd different issue I guess.
> >
> >  Just wonder what your policies are.
> >
> >  Other stuff that broke on me in the past, was latex packages as example.
> >
> >  ___
> >  nix-dev mailing list
> >  nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
> >  http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

On 01/23/2017 10:07 AM, Stefan Huchler wrote:

> So because I dont need always newest versions on all of my boxes, I
> selected the 16.xx chhannel.
> 
> There are here and there some minor issues as example kodi here and
> there crashes maybe 1-3 times a week. Could be extentions or something.
> 
> For that and other reasons I update here and there all few weeks maybe
> the maschine.
> 
> So one advantage of course is that if I notice that something does not
> work I can boot a old configuration, so I dont have to deal with some
> updates that broke stuff or rollback.
> 
> But I wonder how you can break relativly often stuff (at the moment
> there seems to be a python dependency problem with flexget, that makes
> the daemon crash), in a "stable" release channel.

Could you be more specific? Also, if you spot a regression, please report it in
the Github issue tracker so that the offending patch can be reverted promptly.

The policy for the stable branch is that it should only have security or bug fix
updates. New versions of packages can be added but only in addition and marked
as "lowPrio".

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | LogicBlox, Inc. | http://nixos.org/~eelco/
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

Re: [Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Freddy Rietdijk]

Hi Stefan,

Regarding flexget. There were some security issues with an (indirect)
dependency, html5lib, and thus html5lib was upgraded. Maybe that broke
flexget, I don't know.

The main issue is just a lack of maintainers. It's relatively
straightforward to add a package to Nixpkgs, but maintaining a package set
this size that also keeps growing is becoming increasingly harder.

Freddy

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Stefan Huchler 
wrote:

> So because I dont need always newest versions on all of my boxes, I
> selected the 16.xx chhannel.
>
> There are here and there some minor issues as example kodi here and
> there crashes maybe 1-3 times a week. Could be extentions or something.
>
> For that and other reasons I update here and there all few weeks maybe
> the maschine.
>
> So one advantage of course is that if I notice that something does not
> work I can boot a old configuration, so I dont have to deal with some
> updates that broke stuff or rollback.
>
> But I wonder how you can break relativly often stuff (at the moment
> there seems to be a python dependency problem with flexget, that makes
> the daemon crash), in a "stable" release channel.
>
> I mean if I use debian, and stick to my "channel"/release, normaly
> nothing breaks, as long as I use only their package installer, pip
> updates of course broke stuff. If I use fedora, well I get maybe some
> upstream changes like new kernel versions, but normaly they brake also
> nothing.
>
> So if "stable" channel makes updates that are not needed (the older
> version of flexget works fine), whats the point or the criterias of
> those releases? I could then just use the newest version, if I have to
> relay on rollback / boot old versions anyway, I dont really see the
> point of "stable" channels.
>
> I had pretty good experiences with using the rolling channel, but had
> many times break stuff in the stable channel.
>
> Also the tools around generations / boot-generations is very confusing,
> why do I have 3 4 options in the nix-env --list-generation overview but
> 20 in the boot menu.
>
> But thats a 2nd different issue I guess.
>
> Just wonder what your policies are.
>
> Other stuff that broke on me in the past, was latex packages as example.
>
> ___
> nix-dev mailing list
> nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>
___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev

[Nix-dev] Why having releases if you break things in it often

[Stefan Huchler]

So because I dont need always newest versions on all of my boxes, I
selected the 16.xx chhannel.

There are here and there some minor issues as example kodi here and
there crashes maybe 1-3 times a week. Could be extentions or something.

For that and other reasons I update here and there all few weeks maybe
the maschine.

So one advantage of course is that if I notice that something does not
work I can boot a old configuration, so I dont have to deal with some
updates that broke stuff or rollback.

But I wonder how you can break relativly often stuff (at the moment
there seems to be a python dependency problem with flexget, that makes
the daemon crash), in a "stable" release channel.

I mean if I use debian, and stick to my "channel"/release, normaly
nothing breaks, as long as I use only their package installer, pip
updates of course broke stuff. If I use fedora, well I get maybe some
upstream changes like new kernel versions, but normaly they brake also
nothing.

So if "stable" channel makes updates that are not needed (the older
version of flexget works fine), whats the point or the criterias of
those releases? I could then just use the newest version, if I have to
relay on rollback / boot old versions anyway, I dont really see the
point of "stable" channels.

I had pretty good experiences with using the rolling channel, but had
many times break stuff in the stable channel.

Also the tools around generations / boot-generations is very confusing,
why do I have 3 4 options in the nix-env --list-generation overview but
20 in the boot menu.

But thats a 2nd different issue I guess.

Just wonder what your policies are.

Other stuff that broke on me in the past, was latex packages as example.

___
nix-dev mailing list
nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl
http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev