Re: Backporting a whole X stack
Hi!
* Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> [2011-06-20 15:55:46 CEST]:
> Some comments follow.
>
> * I would suspect x11proto*/libx* are trivial to backport. libdrm
> shouldn't be too hard either. mesa is a real beast, and is really
> costly, when it comes to CPU eating (and brain damage might occur,
> you've been warned!), probably one of the biggest task.
>
> * Once libraries in place, the server should be quite easy to backport.
> But some drivers might have been dropped in the meanwhile, so meta
> packages might need be adjusted, so that they are still installable;
> that's probably going to be a boring part of the job.
>
> * Drivers should also be an easy task. But there are 40-50 of them. So,
> again, boring. :/
From what I understood the idea was like keeping them to the major set
(like radeon, nouveau for graphics drivers)? I do understand that Jesse
asked for the full set, but your approach sounds much more reasonable in
that respect, and definitely much less of a burden.
> * Finally, multiarch is on its way in unstable, and stable has no
> multiarch support. So I would suspect one would have to revert the
> multiarch changes. That would also mean taking extra care of versions
> in Breaks, Conflicts, etc. (see the mesa mess these days[1]). That's
> probably a difficult task (as in: need extra care).
>
> 1. http://blog.mraw.org/2011/06/18/mesa_a_disturbance_in_the_Force/
>
> (Also, I'm not sure how dropping multiarch support will be seen by
> backports folks. That's an important, and dangerous, change from
> testing, and they really insist on the changes' being kept as minimal
> as possible.)
"insist" is a bit wrong here. It is the preferred way, and the
reasoning behind it is that packages that enter testing are usually
considered to be seen as acceptable for a release because otherwise
packagers are encouraged to file serious bugreports on their own
packages to keep "dangerous changes" out from testing (generally
spoken). If the package maintainers are not happy with having such a
change to enter backports, I would argue why they consider it acceptable
to enter testing.
On the other hand, there might be very valid reasons to do so (for
example, broader testing exposure during a timeframe that can be well
overlooked; or if the change is done amongst a range of packages that
need to interact with each other, or is system wide), and if within this
time a backport of the package is considered to be done because of
additional support, especially hardware-wise like it is with X, an
exception to the rules is easy to argue and acceptable.
Let me take this as an opportunity to send big kudos to everyone
involved in the X force. I saw it burn out people over time and you have
my full respect for taming the beast, even though it might come across
differently at times.
Enjoy!
Rhonda
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