tl;dr: upgrades between releases doesn't work, we suck.
Op 26 okt. 2012, om 21:29 heeft Ciprian Ciubotariu <cheepe...@gmx.net> het
volgende geschreven:
> Hello.
>
> I have a large number of devices running code from an Angstrom
> 2010.x-based distro. I want to upgrade them to a more current version of
> software, but I am confused which of the meta-angstrom branches I should
> follow.
>
> On the meta-angstrom repository I see the following branches:
>
> upstream/angstrom-v2012.05-yocto1.2
> upstream/angstrom-v2012.12-yocto1.3
> upstream/master
>
> On the meta-openembedded I have:
>
> upstream/denzil
> upstream/denzil-next
> upstream/master
>
> On openembedded-core there is an extra master-next, 2011-1 and a danny
> branch.
>
> As far as i can see the master branches match in creating what you call
> angstrom-next; 2012.05-yocto1.2 seems to match the denzil branches from
> OE, and danny is mentioned on the yocto project web page as codename for
> 1.3.
>
> I have managed to compile and perform a test upgrade with opkg to the
> current master branches, but the device was unable to boot afterwards
> (i.e. systemd would not provide a login prompt, and dbus errors related
> to systemd were filling up the console).
That is sadly expected :( The 2010 -> 2012.x change was a hard break because we
change from OE-classic to OE-core. Several packages have different names, which
breaks upgrade paths. This is also the reason that narcissus is stuck at 2010.x.
> At this stage I decided to go to you, Angstrom developers, and ask some
> questions necessary for taking a decision on how to proceed further:
>
> Where did 2010.x go? Is it "continued" by any of the current branches?
It isn't, the current release is angstrom-v2012.05-yocto1.2 ('denzil') and in
december we hope to release angstrom-v2012.12-yocto1.3 ('danny').
> What are the best practices when upgrading devices based on your distro?
> Are there any resources/examples/guides?
> What is the procedure for upgrading devices between Angstrom
> "releases" (i.e. from 2010.x to 2012.05 or, perhaps, angstrom-next)?
It the old OE-classic times the angstrom developers tried very hard to make
'opkg update ; opkg upgrade' work between releases, but that is becoming
practically impossible nowadays. A lot of problems are caused by opkg being
stupid (e.g. files move between packages) but a lot of problems are caused by
developers being stupid and breaking upgrade paths. For v2012.05 -> v2012.12
the decision was made to try to keep the core system upgradable, but we haven't
succeeded in that. We won't succeed for v2012.12 -> next either, since OE-core
deprecated /usr/libexec and moved everything to /usr/lib/<packagename>. That
move is a good thing, but it breaks upgrades.
> What exactly differentiates 2010.x from 2012.05, 2012.12 and
> angstrom-next?
2010.x: Built with OE-classic, deprecated
v2012.05: first release based on OE-core 'denzil', has release branches for a
lot of layers. I'm being paid to support that for the Beaglebone.
v2012.12: upcoming release basedon OE-core 'danny', no earth shattering
changes, mostly updates and polish
next: tracks OE-core master, breaks every other day, but will get renamed into
v2013.06 somewhere in april/may to stabilize for release
So we track OE-core releases but delay a bit to drag in the first batch or
fixes to avoid nasty surprises.
regards,
Koen
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