Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

Hi list.

Something I've noticed with Testing/Lenny is that packages often
disappear for a short period (a few days or weeks) and then reappear.
A few current examples: xmms and nvidia-glx. If you look on
packages.debian.org they are in unstable and stable, but not testing.
comix was also gone for a while but is back again.

I understand that packages will take a while to get from unstable to
testing, but why would this process make packages disappear?

This is annoying. I install desktops from Debian Testing and can't
find packages. In this case I usually install the missing packages
from Unstable, but this can cause problems. For example, I installed
nvidia-glx from unstable on a testng box (along with the updated xorg
dependancies), and then I couldn't get X to work (dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xorg no longer asked for video card, and makes an invalid
config file so X can't startup). After reinstalling X I'm now using
the nv driver until nvidia-glx returns to Testing.

Any suggestions? Should I be using Unstable instead of Testing for
desktops? (I've had bad experiences with Unstable in the past).

Regards,

David.


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 08:35:13 +0200, David (wizzardx@gmail.com) wrote:

> Something I've noticed with Testing/Lenny is that packages often
> disappear for a short period (a few days or weeks) and then reappear.
> A few current examples: xmms and nvidia-glx. If you look on
> packages.debian.org they are in unstable and stable, but not testing.
> comix was also gone for a while but is back again.

I'm not an expert, but I think that packages in testing are just that -
under test. Not just the individual packages, but also how they fit in
with other packages. I imagine these packages were removed for a good
reason. Again, I'm not sure about all this, but this may be useful
regarding xmms, one of the examples you mentioned:

http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/xmms.html

> This is annoying. I install desktops from Debian Testing and can't
> find packages. In this case I usually install the missing packages
> from Unstable, but this can cause problems. For example, I installed
> nvidia-glx from unstable on a testng box (along with the updated xorg
> dependancies), and then I couldn't get X to work (dpkg-reconfigure
> xserver-xorg no longer asked for video card, and makes an invalid
> config file so X can't startup). After reinstalling X I'm now using
> the nv driver until nvidia-glx returns to Testing.
>
> Any suggestions? Should I be using Unstable instead of Testing for
> desktops? (I've had bad experiences with Unstable in the past).

If you want stability, then go for 'stable' ?

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK.

Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

Hi and thanks for your reply.

>
> I'm not an expert, but I think that packages in testing are just that -
> under test. Not just the individual packages, but also how they fit in
> with other packages. I imagine these packages were removed for a good
> reason. Again, I'm not sure about all this, but this may be useful
> regarding xmms, one of the examples you mentioned:
>
> http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/xmms.html

Thanks, I didn't notice before that there were log messages for
removal (and reason) from testing in the QA pages. For each of the
packages I listed there was a reasonable explanation.

Personally I don't agree that packages in testing should be removed if
a) version in testing is very old, and b) there is an updated version
in unstable which hasn't gone to testing yet, but I'm sure that Debian
has a good reason for this (to give the maintainers a metaphorical
'kick in the pants'?). Anyone have more info on this? XMMS being
removed is a surprise too, since the most similar media player
Audacious still has a lot of problems for me, and my work uses XMMS
for one of our main services.

> If you want stability, then go for 'stable' ?

Touche. I mainly wanted to know why packages were disappearing - maybe
it was a bug in the testing -> unstable process. It's mainly my own
desktops (work, home, etc) which I run against testing, but I also
recommend it for other people when Stable is getting long in the
tooth, or they need updated video drivers, kernel versions, etc.

I'll dist-upgrade my desktop from Testing to Unstable (crosses
fingers), install the missing packages, and then track (dist-upgrade
every few weeks) Testing again. Maybe I should be running Ubuntu if I
want a desktop with up-to-date packages, but reasonably well tested
:-) (which Debian Testing *usually* gives me).

Thanks again for your reply.

David.


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:40:33AM +0200, David wrote:
> I'll dist-upgrade my desktop from Testing to Unstable (crosses
> fingers), install the missing packages, and then track (dist-upgrade
> every few weeks) Testing again.

You might also consider having both testing and unstable in
/etc/apt/sources.list, and using pinning in /etc/apt/preferences

man 5 apt_preferences

--
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Informatica=arsenico: minime dosi in rari casi patologici, altrimenti letale.
Informatica=bomba: intelligente solo per gli stupidi che ci credono.


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:40:33AM +0200, David <wizzardx@gmail.com> was heard to say:
> Hi and thanks for your reply.
>
> >
> > I'm not an expert, but I think that packages in testing are just that -
> > under test. Not just the individual packages, but also how they fit in
> > with other packages. I imagine these packages were removed for a good
> > reason. Again, I'm not sure about all this, but this may be useful
> > regarding xmms, one of the examples you mentioned:
> >
> > http://packages.qa.debian.org/x/xmms.html
>
> Thanks, I didn't notice before that there were log messages for
> removal (and reason) from testing in the QA pages. For each of the
> packages I listed there was a reasonable explanation.
>
> Personally I don't agree that packages in testing should be removed if
> a) version in testing is very old, and b) there is an updated version
> in unstable which hasn't gone to testing yet, but I'm sure that Debian
> has a good reason for this (to give the maintainers a metaphorical
> 'kick in the pants'?). Anyone have more info on this? XMMS being
> removed is a surprise too, since the most similar media player
> Audacious still has a lot of problems for me, and my work uses XMMS
> for one of our main services.

I believe the main reason for removing packages from testing is if
they're holding up active transitions. Say 200 packages have to be
migrated to testing in tandem with a library update to maintain
consistency, and one of them isn't properly updated yet. The RMs will
remove that one package from testing to allow the other 199 to go
through.

(please take this with a grain of salt, I'm not a release manager
and I don't fully understand the testing system)

Daniel


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

David wrote:

> Something I've noticed with Testing/Lenny is that packages often
> disappear for a short period (a few days or weeks) and then reappear.
> A few current examples: xmms and nvidia-glx. If you look on
> packages.debian.org they are in unstable and stable, but not testing.
> comix was also gone for a while but is back again.
>

There are many reasons why a package might not be in testing. I suggest you
go to http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/ to figure out why a particular package
is not in testing.

In your particular example, it seems
. xmms is not available in Debian (perhaps removed?).
. nvidia-glx is part of the source package nvidia-graphics-drivers which has
been in unstable for only 8 days. For packages to trickle into testing, the
normal urgency is 10 days.


There is also a command called grep-excuses which might be useful. See its
man page for more info.

$grep-excuses nvidia-graphics-drivers
nvidia-graphics-drivers (- to 169.12-1)
Maintainer: Debian NVIDIA Maintainers
Section: non-free/x11
Too young, only 8 of 10 days old
Ignoring high urgency setting for NEW package
nvidia-glx/i386 unsatisfiable Depends: nvidia-kernel-169.12
nvidia-glx/amd64 unsatisfiable Depends: nvidia-kernel-169.12
nvidia-glx-ia32/amd64 unsatisfiable Depends: nvidia-kernel-169.12
nvidia-kernel-source (i386, amd64) has new bugs!
Updating nvidia-kernel-source introduces new bugs: #432182, #434379,
#474734, #462139, #437131, #460441
nvidia-glx (i386, amd64) has new bugs!
Updating nvidia-glx introduces new bugs: #441975, #443870, #438409,
#461184
Not considered



hth
raju
--
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

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On 04/14/08 10:15, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
[snip]
>
>
> There is also a command called grep-excuses which might be useful. See its
> man page for more info.
>
> $grep-excuses nvidia-graphics-drivers

This seems to be a great tool. Too bad it wants to pull in World +
Dog...

# apt-get install devscripts
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no
longer required:
totem-mozilla
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
Suggested packages:
devscripts-el libgssapi-perl binutils-multiarch
libtext-template-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
devscripts diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
0 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 341 not upgraded.
Need to get 23.7MB/24.3MB of archives.
After this operation, 36.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

We want... a Shrubbery!!
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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

On 2008-04-14 17:28 +0200, Ron Johnson wrote:

> On 04/14/08 10:15, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
>> There is also a command called grep-excuses which might be useful. See its
>> man page for more info.
>>
>> $grep-excuses nvidia-graphics-drivers
>
> This seems to be a great tool. Too bad it wants to pull in World +
> Dog...
>
> # apt-get install devscripts
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following packages were automatically installed and are no
> longer required:
> totem-mozilla
> Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
> The following extra packages will be installed:
> cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
> diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
> libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
> libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
> libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
> libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
> libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
> libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
> Suggested packages:
> devscripts-el libgssapi-perl binutils-multiarch
> libtext-template-perl
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
> cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
> devscripts diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
> libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
> libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
> libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
> libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
> libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
> libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
> 0 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 341 not upgraded.
> Need to get 23.7MB/24.3MB of archives.
> After this operation, 36.4MB of additional disk space will be used.

You know that all these packages are just recommendations and you do not
need to install all (not even any) of them?

Sven


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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 04/14/08 10:56, Sven Joachim wrote:
> On 2008-04-14 17:28 +0200, Ron Johnson wrote:
>
>> On 04/14/08 10:15, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
>>> There is also a command called grep-excuses which might be useful. See its
>>> man page for more info.
>>>
>>> $grep-excuses nvidia-graphics-drivers
>> This seems to be a great tool. Too bad it wants to pull in World +
>> Dog...
>>
>> # apt-get install devscripts
>> Reading package lists... Done
>> Building dependency tree
>> Reading state information... Done
>> The following packages were automatically installed and are no
>> longer required:
>> totem-mozilla
>> Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
>> The following extra packages will be installed:
>> cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
>> diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
>> libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
>> libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
>> libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
>> libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
>> libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
>> libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
>> Suggested packages:
>> devscripts-el libgssapi-perl binutils-multiarch
>> libtext-template-perl
>> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>> cvs cvs-buildpackage debian-keyring debian-maintainers
>> devscripts diffstat dupload equivs libauthen-sasl-perl
>> libclass-accessor-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
>> libfile-basedir-perl libfile-desktopentry-perl
>> libparse-debcontrol-perl libparse-debianchangelog-perl
>> libpod-coverage-perl libpod-escapes-perl libpod-simple-perl
>> libterm-size-perl libtest-pod-perl libtie-ixhash-perl
>> libxml-simple-perl lintian patchutils wdiff
>> 0 upgraded, 25 newly installed, 0 to remove and 341 not upgraded.
>> Need to get 23.7MB/24.3MB of archives.
>> After this operation, 36.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
>
> You know that all these packages are just recommendations and you do not
> need to install all (not even any) of them?

Maybe there's an ambiguity in what "*will* be installed" means?

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

We want... a Shrubbery!!
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Packages temporarily disappearing from Testing/Lenny
 

On 2008-04-14 18:32 +0200, Ron Johnson wrote:

> On 04/14/08 10:56, Sven Joachim wrote:
>> You know that all these packages are just recommendations and you do not
>> need to install all (not even any) of them?
>
> Maybe there's an ambiguity in what "*will* be installed" means?

Probably not; if you'd use aptitude rather than apt-get, you could use
the "--without-recommends" commandline option or use the TUI to sort out
which of the recommended packages you want and which not (the latter is
what I did). But even with apt-get, you can remove the recommended
packages at any time, that's the difference between dependencies and
recommendations, after all.

Sven


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