Re: List of modified packages between two distributions.

[Frank Lin PIAT <fpiat@klabs.be>]

On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 18:29 +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
> 	Hi!
> 
> Am Sonntag, den 07.12.2008, 03:09 +0100 schrieb Frank Lin PIAT:
> > I have written a small script[1] to compare the list of packages
> > provided by two distributions. I've had such idea for a while, but I
> > must admit that Nokia's matrix[2] deserve some credit.
> 
>  lool, almost same time. I announced my first version of an extremely
> similar script although already on saturday[..]

I have kept digging on the concept of comparing the packages between two
releases. The general idea is to pre-process the .Packages files and
load them into a database. I then prototyped a pager:

  http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?reason=new-binary
  http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?reason=removed-bin
  http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?reason=removed

At the moment, the main problem is to find a way to shorten URLs like:
http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/index.php?comp[]=main&section[]=admin&section[]=base&section[]=comm&section[]=devel&section[]=doc&section[]=editors&section[]=electronics&section[]=embedded&section[]=games&section[]=gnome&section[]=graphics&section[]=hamradio&section[]=interpreters&section[]=kde&section[]=mail&section[]=math&section[]=misc&section[]=net&section[]=news&section[]=otherosfs&section[]=perl&section[]=python&section[]=science&section[]=shells&section[]=sound&section[]=tex&section[]=text&section[]=utils&section[]=web&section[]=x11&reason[]=new-source&reason[]=provided&reason[]=removed&reason[]=removed-bin&reason[]=removed-has-conflict&reason[]=replaced&popularity[]=3&popularity[]=4&view=default&sortby[]=popcon&package=&desc=


There's also also a customizable view / query editor:
  http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?view=custom
It should actually prove to be quite useful to have a web based "apt
search":
 * http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?package=_sh|__sh
 * http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?view=provides&provides=httpd
 * http://www.klabs.be/~fpiat/linux/comp-dist2/lenny/?view=pkg-group&group=task:web-server--r

With this prototype, I have a better understanding of what can/should be
achieved.

My next move is to decide where I should implement it (packages.d.o,
qa.d.org, or something else, based on UDD...)

Regards,

Franklin