On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 09:26:13AM +1200, Michael Cree wrote: > You guys may have been able to compile certain packages on your > systems because you have an old install that is partially upgraded.
Can't speak for anyone else reading this, but my "unstable" setup was current within a week (might have missed-out on as much as a week's worth of updates) when the original Alpha autobuilders went off-line. > But in the autobuilder network we reinstall from scratch packages that > are needed (i.e. build-depends) for each package build. Therein lies the real problem... My memory is probably faulty, but I recall the plug getting pulled on Alpha just prior to the most recent stable version release, so there's no way to arrive at an equivalent stable baseline distribution from scratch other than start with something ancient and applying upgrades piecemeal. In other words, if you weren't running "Sid" prior to Alpha getting dropped, you're pretty much hosed. It's not impossible to get there from scratch, but it's admittedly beyond the capability of the automatic upgrade mechanism as it currently exists. (I'm NOT lobbying for an automatic upgrader that might be able to handle our scenario: no way I'd trust it to do the right thing, even if I *could* figure out how to write such an abomination :-)). > The conflicts > are so bad that we have come to an impasse where that is no longer > possible and nothing can build. (Admittedly there are ~300 built > packages to upload but that is not going to resolve the fundamental > problem.) No argument with any part of the above. Didn't realize what the issue was with the autobuilders. The "from scratch" install of dependencies is a serious obstacle in at least the short term. > But in the meantime people are well advised, "do not attempt to > upgrade your system," and if you ignore that advice, be prepared to > build packages yourselves to resolve breakage. Breakage has always been a risk for people intent on running "Sid": that hasn't changed. The more serious risk here is an unstable distribution newbie allowing "synaptic" to gut his system in a futile effort to allow installation of what updates *do* exist. Agreed that "do not attempt to upgrade your system" is good advice for people who aren't prepared to deal with the consequences of ignoring that advice. Thanks for the explanation of what's going on. If there's anything I can reasonably do to help, please don't hesitate to ask. --Bob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
