[maemo-developers] OS upgrades (was: Busybox version)

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

As this isn't anymore about Busybox, but the OS upgrades,
I updated the subject.

ext Graham Cobb wrote:
>>> That could work but ONLY if Nokia allow busybox-maemo and
>>> busybox-symlinks-tar to be replaced (and this works even through OS
>>> upgrades).  That seems unlikely to me.
 >
>> That would be a configuration that Nokia hasn't tested, so I don't see
>> how we could support it in the consumer sense.  As to "allowing" the
>> replacement AFAIK only thing needed before replacing any of the
>> pre-installed packages is that you remove the "lock" meta-package?
> 
> That is the killer.  The whole point of this mechanism has to be that it works 
> WITHOUT removing the lock!  If you are going to remove the lock you can do 
> anything you want anyway.  And, as I understand it, if you remove the lock 
> you never get any OS updates again.

I think the OS upgrade basically means upgrading the lock, which then brings
in the other updates through exact version dependencies.  I guess you could
just install the new "lock" (maybe for that you first need to re-install
the old one), but because that would depend from all the system components,
the busybox symlinks would be again installed and therefore all the
system component replacements removed.

As removing packages shouldn't remove their config files or user data,
everything "should" work again when you re-install the replacements,
shouldn't it?


> The whole point of my "alternatives" proposal is that it doesn't need to 
> remove the lock.  No Nokia components are ever removed, and Nokia OS upgrades 
> continue to upgrade the Nokia-provided alternatives as usual, but the user 
> can choose (through the alternatives mechanism) to not use those but to use 
> others instead.

In both cases either the binaries are locked, or Nokia trusts the
replacements user installs to work well enough for the OS upgrade (whether
they're implemented in Busybox case as symlink replacements or using
Debian alternatives is irrelevant).

To me it seems that basically you're saying that you want the upgrades
regardless of how the system has been modified (preferably without
losing your updates :-)), i.e. you don't want an OS upgrade, but
something more similar to the regular Debian (security etc) updates
you get with "apt-get update".


[...]
> Yes, we need someone who understands the lock and upgrade mechanisms
 > to jump in!

Marius is currently on vacation.  I guess he answers once he gets back.


	- Eero