[pkg-firebird-general] Re: Being a beta tester for Firebird 2package on Debian

[Damyan Ivanov]

Hi, Valdir,

Valdir Marcos -=| 24.11.2006 06:00 |=-
> I agree with you about the coexistence.

Good ;)

> Could you chance the names "firebird2-super-server" and
> "firebrid2-2.0-super-server" to "firebird15-super-server" and
> "firebrid20-super-server" because very soon we are going to have FB 2.1,
> 2.5, 3.0 and 3.1 according to international news (Dmitry Yemanov in
> Prague November 2006)?

I can try to rename firebird2 to firebird-1.5 and firebird2-2.0 to
firebird-2.0, yes. Renaming packages with complicated
inter-dependencies is not my favourite, but I agree this is the way to go.

> Again, could the directories be "/etc/firebird15" and "/etc/firebird20"?

I'd prefer /etc/firebird/1.5/  /etc/firebird/2.0 etc

> Could this instalations create the users and groups "firebird15" and
> "firebird20"?

Why separate users/groups for each version? What's wrong with single
user? All apache versions use the same user - www-data.

>> This is why I'd prefer to have both versions installable, even if not
>> at the same time.
> 
> If we change all those information of my questions we can make many
> firebird server versions coexist without problems.

Not simultaneously. Two reasons:

Some binaries are in /usr/bin and I don't want to have
/usr/bin/gfix-1.5 and /usr/bin/gfix-2.0 - it's ugly and an overkill
having in mind that the typical installation will have only one
version installed.

The other problem is the listening port - I don't want to use custom
ports. gds_db service has a port registered, let's use it.

> I have no experience on subversion software or building deb files, but I
> learn very fast. Can you teach me the first steps so I can help you with
> firebird and flamerobin deb files?

I am not sure how to start :)

A good book for subversion is at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/

As of debian packaging, it is very wide area; I am still learning :)
You may want to take a look at http://www.bg.debian.org/devel/join/
There is a lot to read, but don't panic and arm yourself with
patience. Please read below for more ways to help.

> If we can create firebird and flamerobin deb files, many users can
> install them by dpkg while these deb files are not accepted as "stable"
> by Debian administrators! As a matter of fact, nowadays, I install them
> on Debian by "tar.gz" file...

You're talking about 2.0, I guess (1.5.3 is in Debian/testing).
Please note that the stable policy is very restrictive. Once released,
stable accepts only very critical changes - security fixes, grave bugs
etc. In no case stable can accept a new upstream release.

Debian release behaviour is maybe different from what you expect.

In general any new version of a package (upstream release or debian
revision) enters unstable first. Then after certain period of time it
enters "testing", but only if the package has no release-critical
bugs. Then, once in a while, release managers declare a new Debian
"stable" release, containing packages from "testing". This "stable" is
then frozen for changes.

Here's an article about this
http://datacircle.org/archives/2006/01/26/how-debian-releases-work/

No one can stop us from providing backported packages, though
(packages with new versions, built to be installable on stable). There
is even a semi-official site, dedicated to this - backports.org.

I've never built a 1.5 firebird packages for sarge, since I personally
use a mix of stable, testing and unstable (even for servers; Sometimes
I regret it) and second, no one asked for this :) There are no big
technical difficulties of preparing a backport, really.

Now that Etch release is near and 2.0 packages won't be there, I
certainly will try to packport them.

I'll need help in two areas - discussing handling different versions
(which we already do), and testing new packages, which are not ready
yet, but will be soon, I hope.


Kind regards,
	dam
-- 
Damyan Ivanov                           Modular Software Systems
dam at modsoftsys.com
phone +359(2)928-2611, 929-3993              fax +359(2)920-0994
mobile +359(88)856-6067             dam at jabber.minus273.org/Gaim

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