[maemo-developers] Maemo 5 PR1.2 and Extras

[From: Neil MacLeod]

Niels Breet wrote:
> Hi,
>
> - Maemo 5 PR1.2 will ship with Extras enabled by default but will use
> distribution: fremantle-1.2
> - 'older' devices will continue to fetch from distribution: fremantle
> - Autobuilder will be updated when PR1.2 is released and promotion will
> only happen to fremantle-1.2
>

Sorry if I'm a little late to this discussion, but if we're creating a 
new distribution/repository which means there will be problems with 
existing install files, wouldn't it be easier just to hack apt-* on 
PR1.2 so that it looks for a new fremantle-1.2 distribution for the 
Extras repository when the distribution is called Extras/fremantle?

It's not going to be nice hacking apt-get, but surely this would be much 
easier than hacking changes into numerous services so that they detect 
the firmware version downloading the file in order that the correct 
install file can be served up.

In addition, if I back up my Extras/fremantle catalogue prior to 
reflashing with PR1.2, will PR1.2 then automatically replace 
Extras/fremantle with Extras/fremantle-1.2 after I restore all my 
catalogues? If it doesn't, my device may have both Extras/fremantle and 
Extras/fremantle-1.2 in it's source list, or the former may 
overwrite/replace the latter, so is this likely to be a problem? Most 
likely yes, as I then run the risk of downloading incompatible Qt4.5 
apps from Extras/fremantle.

If apt-* could be hacked in PR1.2 to special case Extras/fremantle into 
Extras/fremantle-1.2 on the http download, then install files would 
continue to work unchanged, and restored backups would also work unchanged.

In the same way, if an Extras/fremantle-1.3 is required in PR1.3, the 
same hack would be applied to apt-* in PR1.3 and nobody would be any the 
wiser.

Regards
Neil