On 06/23/2012 03:10 PM, Mehdi Dogguy wrote:
> On 06/23/2012 08:23 AM, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> Unfortunately, we never require that our users upgrade to the latest
>> point release before upgrading to stable+1.
>
> http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#system-status

Oh, thanks for correcting me! Does this mean that modifying apt / dpkg
to take care of ia32-libs is a possibility?

Thomas


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On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 01:07:56PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> It has to be held back. But apt-get/aptitude might select a solution
> where they do get removed rather then hold back many other packages.
> I'm hoping it will be held back automatically without user intervention
> but that might not happen.
>
> I'm not aware that this will happen but I also haven't tested a squeeze
> -> wheezy upgrade with 32bit stuff installed. Experiece has just shown
> that on large upgrades packages are easily removed instead of held back
> and given the large number of updates involved users often miss a
> specific one being listed.

You don't need to go between releases: every time gcc-4.7 or eglibc get
updated, apt wants to remove whole architectures which didn't build these
packages yet.

Having it hold in such a case would be nice.

--
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replaced me in the crib.

On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 09:32:15PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 06/22/2012 05:34 PM, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> > Step 1: upgrade/dist-upgrade with ia32-libs (wine, ...) held back
> > Step 2: dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update
> > Step 3: dist-upgrade (ia32-libs, wine, ... is now installable)
> >
> May I suggest that upon upgrade, we have a debconf message telling
> about it? We could add this in base-files or any essential package,
> probably one with some debconf messages already in would be a better
> pick. Instructions would show, IF ia32-libs old version is currently
> installed
> AND the --add-architecture i386 hasn't bee done.
>
> I know we have release notes, but some don't know about them or would
> simply not read them. A debconf message seem really appropriate IMO.

No, debconf messages are the wrong tool for the job.

Release notes are meant to be read once, not every time you upgrade a
system. Having a debconf note once might be appropriate. The second
time, you'll go "right, I've seen that before". The third time you go
"sigh, yes, I know, fuck off". The fourth time, you hit ctrl-C, and run
"DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade" -- and then miss
something that was actually important and didn't occur on previous
installs.

Please, let's keep upgrade information in the release notes. If some
people don't read them, that's something we should try to fix; not by
trying to work around the release notes, but by making them more
accessible, easier to find, and more obvious instead.

--
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the following formula:

pi zz a


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On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 08:18:03PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

> > May I suggest that upon upgrade, we have a debconf message telling
> > about it? We could add this in base-files or any essential package,
> > probably one with some debconf messages already in would be a better
> > pick. Instructions would show, IF ia32-libs old version is currently
> > installed
> > AND the --add-architecture i386 hasn't bee done.

> > I know we have release notes, but some don't know about them or would
> > simply not read them. A debconf message seem really appropriate IMO.
> > Something along with:

> Problem is that frontends will complain about ia32-libs being not
> upgradable and might suggest removing it instead of keeping it back way
> before that.

Why would they do that? Has anyone seen this happening in practice?

The ia32-libs package has trivial dependencies, none of which should run
into conflicts on upgrade from squeeze to wheezy. Some of the biarch
library packages that ia32-libs depends on *might* go away before wheezy
release, but none have yet. So there's no reason for a frontend to remove
the ia32-libs package /at all/ on upgrade; it should be held back because
the dependencies of the new version of the package aren't satisfiable until
the package database is updated with knowledge of multiarch, but it
certainly shouldn't be removed. At which point, the user just has to enable
multiarch, apt-get update, and do a second apt-get dist-upgrade pass.

I don't see why we would want to try any of the kludgy solutions being
discussed in this thread without evidence that the above can't be made to
work and kept working for release. Then we just need to document this in
the release notes, which users ought to be reading anyway, and they can
complete the upgrade at their leisure.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org

On 06/24/2012 06:01 AM, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 09:32:15PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> On 06/22/2012 05:34 PM, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>>> Step 1: upgrade/dist-upgrade with ia32-libs (wine, ...) held back
>>> Step 2: dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update
>>> Step 3: dist-upgrade (ia32-libs, wine, ... is now installable)
>>>
>> May I suggest that upon upgrade, we have a debconf message telling
>> about it? We could add this in base-files or any essential package,
>> probably one with some debconf messages already in would be a better
>> pick. Instructions would show, IF ia32-libs old version is currently
>> installed
>> AND the --add-architecture i386 hasn't bee done.
>>
>> I know we have release notes, but some don't know about them or would
>> simply not read them. A debconf message seem really appropriate IMO.
>
> No, debconf messages are the wrong tool for the job.
>
> Release notes are meant to be read once, not every time you upgrade a
> system. Having a debconf note once might be appropriate. The second
> time, you'll go "right, I've seen that before". The third time you go
> "sigh, yes, I know, fuck off". The fourth time, you hit ctrl-C, and run
> "DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade" -- and then miss
> something that was actually important and didn't occur on previous
> installs.
>
> Please, let's keep upgrade information in the release notes. If some
> people don't read them, that's something we should try to fix; not by
> trying to work around the release notes, but by making them more
> accessible, easier to find, and more obvious instead.

Well, if you update apt + dpkg first, then --add-architecture i386, and
*then only* dist-upgrade (or if we manage to update apt / dpkg in
stable, so that it does that automatically), it wouldn't display the
debconf. So if you were doing lots of upgrades, it would display the
debconf screen only if you do the mistake to forget about the
--add-architecture i386. So I don't think that my proposal is an abuse
of debconf as you describe.

Thomas


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Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> writes:

> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 01:07:56PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> It has to be held back. But apt-get/aptitude might select a solution
>> where they do get removed rather then hold back many other packages.
>> I'm hoping it will be held back automatically without user intervention
>> but that might not happen.
>>
>> I'm not aware that this will happen but I also haven't tested a squeeze
>> -> wheezy upgrade with 32bit stuff installed. Experiece has just shown
>> that on large upgrades packages are easily removed instead of held back
>> and given the large number of updates involved users often miss a
>> specific one being listed.
>
> You don't need to go between releases: every time gcc-4.7 or eglibc get
> updated, apt wants to remove whole architectures which didn't build these
> packages yet.
>
> Having it hold in such a case would be nice.

That is a different situation though. There you have libfoo:amd64 and
libfoo:i386 in different versions.

Here you have ia32-libs depending on something that doesn't (yet) exist.

MfG
Goswin


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Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> writes:

> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 09:32:15PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> On 06/22/2012 05:34 PM, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> > Step 1: upgrade/dist-upgrade with ia32-libs (wine, ...) held back
>> > Step 2: dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update
>> > Step 3: dist-upgrade (ia32-libs, wine, ... is now installable)
>> >
>> May I suggest that upon upgrade, we have a debconf message telling
>> about it? We could add this in base-files or any essential package,
>> probably one with some debconf messages already in would be a better
>> pick. Instructions would show, IF ia32-libs old version is currently
>> installed
>> AND the --add-architecture i386 hasn't bee done.
>>
>> I know we have release notes, but some don't know about them or would
>> simply not read them. A debconf message seem really appropriate IMO.
>
> No, debconf messages are the wrong tool for the job.
>
> Release notes are meant to be read once, not every time you upgrade a
> system. Having a debconf note once might be appropriate. The second
> time, you'll go "right, I've seen that before". The third time you go
> "sigh, yes, I know, fuck off". The fourth time, you hit ctrl-C, and run
> "DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade" -- and then miss
> something that was actually important and didn't occur on previous
> installs.
>
> Please, let's keep upgrade information in the release notes. If some
> people don't read them, that's something we should try to fix; not by
> trying to work around the release notes, but by making them more
> accessible, easier to find, and more obvious instead.

+1.

MfG
Goswin


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On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 03:57:29PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> > Release notes are meant to be read once, not every time you upgrade a
> > system. Having a debconf note once might be appropriate. The second
> > time, you'll go "right, I've seen that before". The third time you go
> > "sigh, yes, I know, fuck off". The fourth time, you hit ctrl-C, and run
> > "DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade" -- and then miss
> > something that was actually important and didn't occur on previous
> > installs.

> > Please, let's keep upgrade information in the release notes. If some
> > people don't read them, that's something we should try to fix; not by
> > trying to work around the release notes, but by making them more
> > accessible, easier to find, and more obvious instead.

> Well, if you update apt + dpkg first, then --add-architecture i386, and
> *then only* dist-upgrade (or if we manage to update apt / dpkg in
> stable, so that it does that automatically), it wouldn't display the
> debconf. So if you were doing lots of upgrades, it would display the
> debconf screen only if you do the mistake to forget about the
> --add-architecture i386. So I don't think that my proposal is an abuse
> of debconf as you describe.

It's an abuse of debconf because if you know the system is broken, we should
do better than just to tell the user that the system is broken. We should
either give them the option to automatically fix it on upgrade, or - better
by far - we should automatically fix it for them on upgrade.

Why would anyone who has the ia32-libs package installed want anything *but*
to have 'dpkg --add-architecture i386' on upgrade?

That said, I'm not sure I wouldn't also consider it an abuse of base-files
to make that package do this on upgrade. If you're going to task some
package with transitioning to multiarch, it probably makes more sense to do
it in dpkg itself.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org


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Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 03:57:29PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> > Release notes are meant to be read once, not every time you upgrade a
>> > system. Having a debconf note once might be appropriate. The second
>> > time, you'll go "right, I've seen that before". The third time you go
>> > "sigh, yes, I know, fuck off". The fourth time, you hit ctrl-C, and run
>> > "DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade" -- and then miss
>> > something that was actually important and didn't occur on previous
>> > installs.
>
>> > Please, let's keep upgrade information in the release notes. If some
>> > people don't read them, that's something we should try to fix; not by
>> > trying to work around the release notes, but by making them more
>> > accessible, easier to find, and more obvious instead.
>
>> Well, if you update apt + dpkg first, then --add-architecture i386, and
>> *then only* dist-upgrade (or if we manage to update apt / dpkg in
>> stable, so that it does that automatically), it wouldn't display the
>> debconf. So if you were doing lots of upgrades, it would display the
>> debconf screen only if you do the mistake to forget about the
>> --add-architecture i386. So I don't think that my proposal is an abuse
>> of debconf as you describe.
>
> It's an abuse of debconf because if you know the system is broken, we should
> do better than just to tell the user that the system is broken. We should
> either give them the option to automatically fix it on upgrade, or - better
> by far - we should automatically fix it for them on upgrade.
>
> Why would anyone who has the ia32-libs package installed want anything *but*
> to have 'dpkg --add-architecture i386' on upgrade?
>
> That said, I'm not sure I wouldn't also consider it an abuse of base-files
> to make that package do this on upgrade. If you're going to task some
> package with transitioning to multiarch, it probably makes more sense to do
> it in dpkg itself.

As long as we don't have a "<arch X> packages for <arch Y>" partial
architecture I don't think anything should silently add a foreign arch
automatically. Also adding the architecture requires an apt-get/aptitude
update and restarting the upgrade/dist-ugrade so that can't be done from
maintainer scripts cleanly.

I think the place where it makes sense to add a foreign architecture is
in Debian-Installer. I think people who upgrade will have to read the
release notes.

MfG
Goswin


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