[LAU] AVLinux (Was: a bunch of stuff)

[hollunder at gmx.at]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:54:33 +0200
Jean-Baptiste Mestelan <mestelan at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/7/30 Ken Restivo <ken at restivo.org>
> >Linux audio stuff moves fast, and works better with rolling releases,
> 
> This was also the point made in a recent thread ('Audio distribution
> proposal') ; I bought the idea enough to give ArchLinux +
> archaudio.repo a try. And this worked pleasantly well : in a few
> hours' time, I could set up a fast and lean system, with good
> performance for the main audio apps.
> 
> Still, a few updates later, I got to think again about this 'rollling'
> model : does the constant upgrading not mean that you are constantly
> introducing instability into your system ?
> For instance : last month, an update broke 'bash-completion' ; this
> week, I found out that 'patchage' was no longer working (is it due to
> this recent 'boost' lib update ? ) ... These are small things, but
> which prove distracting when you just would have liked to sit down and
> make some music ...

Well, you don't need to upgrade or can upgrade selectively (not always
of course) until you have some time to fix stuff if it happens to break
something.

Patchage still works for me but it doesn't compile anymore. That's the
most common problem I face, gcc or some important lib or buildtool gets
updated and apps that were written with much older versions won't
compile anymore until someone writes a patch or upstream does something
about it. I tend to notify the maintainer or upstream if I happen to be
the maintainer.

> On the other hand, rolling updates imply that changes happen
> gradually, which allows you to determine what particular package
> update caused the problem, and fix accordingly. Well, if you have a
> good idea of package dependencies, and if you indeed upgrade
> gradually.
> So, this brings an other question : what is a good frequency for
> updates ? I remember that on Gentoo, it was better to sync the system
> frequently, as a two-month-late update could result in hard-to-solve
> conflicts. This seems less of a problem in Arch Linux ? (no flamebait
> intended)

Personally I upgrade very frequently and few stuff broke so far. I
haven't tried a long update cycle yet but I bet a number of people do
that as well, I'd ask on IRC, forums or mailinglists about their
experience. Afaik many have used gentoo before.
 
> I am mostly thinking aloud here, but would welcome your experience on
> the matter, as I am having a hard time figuring out what a good
> process would consist in ; probably, it would involve a rolling system
> + carefully controlled updates, and the ability to rollback updates ?
> About this last bit, the Remasterys backup utility included in AVLinux
> is a wonderful addition. It only works for Debian/Ubuntu systems
> though, ... and I do not know how easily every package manager
> provides the ability to downgrade ...
> 
> Here are a few relevant links concerning Arch :
> http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=71987
> http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrade_packages

I don't know if/how a rollback/downgrade is possible on Arch Linux but
at least for packages that I built myself I keep the packages of one or
two versions back, case the new package doesn't work as expected.

Regards,
Philipp