[gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

Hi all,

This is not meant to revive the versioning question.

The various app-doc/howto ebuilds (by pm) have no versions, because the 
standard howto archives have none. The ebuilds define version 1.0 
arbitrarily, but they always download the newest archive with the same 
address and filename.

Do you think we should manage this situation in a better way?

Should we try to work with setting the version dynamically at merge time to 
the archive's timestamp?


-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Daniel Robbins]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 08:14:13PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> This is not meant to revive the versioning question.
> 
> The various app-doc/howto ebuilds (by pm) have no versions, because the 
> standard howto archives have none. The ebuilds define version 1.0 
> arbitrarily, but they always download the newest archive with the same 
> address and filename.
> 
> Do you think we should manage this situation in a better way?
> 
> Should we try to work with setting the version dynamically at merge time to 
> the archive's timestamp?

Best solution for right now is to create our own version of the archive with
a timestamp, and write the linuxdoc people to create these archives with a 
timestamp (20010728, for example) as the version number:

linux-howto-20010728.tar.gz

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

On Saturday 28 July 2001 20:21, you wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 08:14:13PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > This is not meant to revive the versioning question.
> >
> > The various app-doc/howto ebuilds (by pm) have no versions, because the
> > standard howto archives have none. The ebuilds define version 1.0
> > arbitrarily, but they always download the newest archive with the same
> > address and filename.
> >
> > Do you think we should manage this situation in a better way?
> >
> > Should we try to work with setting the version dynamically at merge time
> > to the archive's timestamp?
>
> Best solution for right now is to create our own version of the archive
> with a timestamp, and write the linuxdoc people to create these archives
> with a timestamp (20010728, for example) as the version number:
>
> linux-howto-20010728.tar.gz
>

OK, I'll do so.

-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

On Saturday 28 July 2001 20:21, you wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 08:14:13PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > This is not meant to revive the versioning question.
> >
> > The various app-doc/howto ebuilds (by pm) have no versions, because the
> > standard howto archives have none. The ebuilds define version 1.0
> > arbitrarily, but they always download the newest archive with the same
> > address and filename.
> >
> > Do you think we should manage this situation in a better way?
> >
> > Should we try to work with setting the version dynamically at merge time
> > to the archive's timestamp?
>
> Best solution for right now is to create our own version of the archive
> with a timestamp, and write the linuxdoc people to create these archives
> with a timestamp (20010728, for example) as the version number:
>
> linux-howto-20010728.tar.gz

OK, but I forgot to introduce the more important question: what about 
checksums (i.e. message digests)? Should we check for & create a new ebuild 
for a new timestamp every week or so, or should we override checksums? And 
how do you override them?
-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

I have mailed the linuxdoc mailing list, we'll see what they say. I suggested 
using symlinks e.g. that they have Linux-HOWTOS.tar.gz a symlink always 
pointing to the latest version which has a timestamp in its filename.

File mtimes/atimes can't be used because (on my system at least) prozilla 
destroys them when using HTTP.

Reiterating the old question: how do you override checksums? (e.g. create 
correct ones on-the-fly from within the ebuild).

Another question: the HOWTOs are published in many formats. Unlike 
text/html/html-single, most of the others e.g. ps/pdf/sgml don't have a 
single archive, only the separate howto files. If I wanted to create an 
ebuild to download these, could I somehow make it download an entire 
directory with all its contents from the server so that I wouldn't have to 
manually add new files?
-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Daniel Robbins]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 08:35:54PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > Best solution for right now is to create our own version of the archive
> > with a timestamp, and write the linuxdoc people to create these archives
> > with a timestamp (20010728, for example) as the version number:
> >
> > linux-howto-20010728.tar.gz
> 
> OK, but I forgot to introduce the more important question: what about 
> checksums (i.e. message digests)? Should we check for & create a new ebuild 
> for a new timestamp every week or so, or should we override checksums? And 
> how do you override them?

Nothing special needs to be done with the message digests.  We just upload the
file to our ibiblio mirror.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

On Sunday 29 July 2001 02:38, you wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 08:35:54PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > > Best solution for right now is to create our own version of the archive
> > > with a timestamp, and write the linuxdoc people to create these
> > > archives with a timestamp (20010728, for example) as the version
> > > number:
> > >
> > > linux-howto-20010728.tar.gz
> >
> > OK, but I forgot to introduce the more important question: what about
> > checksums (i.e. message digests)? Should we check for & create a new
> > ebuild for a new timestamp every week or so, or should we override
> > checksums? And how do you override them?
>
> Nothing special needs to be done with the message digests.  We just upload
> the file to our ibiblio mirror.
>

I've been talking with a man from the LDP. Apparently these archives are 
updated at least every few days, and potentially whenever any individual 
howto is updated. So, we can either override checksums - that is, tell 
portage no checksums are needed, as long as the archives exctracts correctly. 
Or, we can generate the correct checksum on-the-fly from within the ebuild 
and have portage reference that. Finally, we might have a program on the 
gentoo server that would check for new versions every day and update the 
checksums, but it's making too big a deal of it. 

As for versioning: I believe (I'm still waiting for the LDP guy's 
confirmation) that an index file inside the archive is always autogenerated 
when the archive is autogenerated. We can use its mtime data to add a 
timestamp as an ebuild version.
Is there a problem with setting/overriding PV from within an ebuild?

-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

Update: Jeorge Goody from linuxdoc.org says the archives are automatically 
recreated 5 days a week, and some howtos are updated on a daily basis.

Please answer my questions farther upstream this thread.
-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Parag Mehta]

Hi Dan,

greg has just confirmed that he will start creating the files in the following fashion :

howtos-20010729.tar.gz

i think this will solve the problems with howtos.

regards,

pm
--
Gentoo Linux Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

On Sunday 29 July 2001 21:10, you wrote:
> Hi Dan,
>
> greg has just confirmed that he will start creating the files in the
> following fashion :
>
> howtos-20010729.tar.gz
>
> i think this will solve the problems with howtos.

It certainly will. Well that's all right than. As soon as the new archives 
appear I'll add ebuilds for the formats we're missing right now - ps/pdf/sgml.

-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Daniel Robbins]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 10:13:03AM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:

> As for versioning: I believe (I'm still waiting for the LDP guy's
> confirmation) that an index file inside the archive is always autogenerated
> when the archive is autogenerated. We can use its mtime data to add a
> timestamp as an ebuild version.  Is there a problem with setting/overriding
> PV from within an ebuild?

Yes.  The best way is to grab one, change the name and upload it to ibiblio.org.
I'm not going to be hacking at Portage to deal with archives with no version numbers;
the problem is with the archive that doesn't have a version number, not Portage.

BTW, you may want to suggest that their archive generation script be upgraded so
that the generated archives have an attached version number or date.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] Problem: HOWTOs archive versions

[Dan Armak]

On Monday 30 July 2001 01:06, you wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 10:13:03AM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > As for versioning: I believe (I'm still waiting for the LDP guy's
> > confirmation) that an index file inside the archive is always
> > autogenerated when the archive is autogenerated. We can use its mtime
> > data to add a timestamp as an ebuild version.  Is there a problem with
> > setting/overriding PV from within an ebuild?
>
> Yes.  The best way is to grab one, change the name and upload it to
> ibiblio.org. I'm not going to be hacking at Portage to deal with archives
> with no version numbers; the problem is with the archive that doesn't have
> a version number, not Portage.
>
> BTW, you may want to suggest that their archive generation script be
> upgraded so that the generated archives have an attached version number or
> date.

We have, and they agreed. Now there are new problems. See my post on the 
overriding/disabling checksums thread.
-- 

--
Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop Team
Matan, Israel