Update announcements / Breakages etc

[jiml]

I have been using Amahi now for about 3 weeks and am loving it.

Following on from todays update breakage it (Bug #446) it made me think about checking this forum before I do any updating.

I was previously running a Sidux (based on Debian unstable) server and doing all the updates using a 3rd party script SMXI which as well as making all the updating easy, it also made it safe by presenting announcements of breakages / fixes / issues etc, this lowered the probability of disaster emormously. In fact using the excellent command line switches of the script I added a command into the .bashrc of root so that when I logged on to do a upgrade the first thing I was presented with was a few lines (from SMXI) telling me what the upgrade status was and whether it was safe to continue.

It is this part that I think could be useful for Amahi. Imagine, you log onto your server as root and before even think of typing "yum update" you are automatically presented with details of whether or not it is safe to do an update, with details of any workarounds etc.

I know that Amahi should not be as volatile as sidux but any update can (and as we've seen today does) screw your system.

Perhaps someone with some knowledge of scripting could have a bash (pun intended) at it.

Jim!

[cpg]

this would be nice.

it would be nicer to *not* have breakages

this is an interesting discussion. we have talked about bleeding edge vs. stability before.

however, historically we have never had two outages in two weeks.

now, generally amahi does not manage base distro updates as it is today. we tried a couple of things in this area and we settled on this policy, as we have both a number of experienced users and a number of "hands off" users.

however, let me ask, who updates that info? is it the community?

[jiml]

I'm in no way asking for less stability, for Amahi to succeed in the long term stability is key. I still use sidux on a laptop at it's use has helped me gain a greater insight into Linux as I it keeps me on my toes and vigilant but for the server I just want it to work.

Having a means of adding confidence to the user that the probability of updating without massive issue is really what Im talking about.

As you say not having problems with upstream breakages would be the best solution but that would require total control i.e. a completly Amahi controlled repository, which I am sure you will get to eventually

Jim!