Re: upgrades must not change the installed init system [was: Re: Cinnamon environment now available in testing]
On Wed, 2014-09-10 at 18:37 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-09-10 at 17:44 +0100, Noel Torres wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 10 de September de 2014 03:12:16 Ben Hutchings escribió:
> > > On Tue, 2014-09-09 at 21:24 +0100, Noel Torres wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, 9 de September de 2014 21:18:55 Tollef Fog Heen escribió:
> > > > > ]] Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez
> > > > >
> > > > > > But if you don't (Is not uncommon to have servers on remote locations
> > > > > > that are only accessible via ssh) and the machine don't boots
> > > > > > properly you can find yourself in trouble.
> > > > >
> > > > > Then surely you test the upgrade before making it live, using kvm
> > > > > -snapshot or similar functionality?
> > > >
> > > > This is simply not possible in physical live, productions servers on
> > > > remote CPDs.
> > >
> > > In that case you test on your staging server first...
> > >
> > > Ben.
> >
> > IF you have an staging server... some clients simply do not pay for it.
>
> Then they already accepted the risk of extended downtime during an
> upgrade.
That doesn't, however, mean that it is acceptable for us to recklessly
cause such downtime.
It seems to me that there is clearly a large group of users for whom an
automagic change in init system is desirable, and won't even be noticed.
There is however also a large group of sysadmins for whom a
noninteractive change of init system is a major, annoying issue. If our
priority really is our users, then we can't brush this under the carpet
with "you should have read the release notes" - and certainly not when
the problem has been foreseen. That is simply not how you respond to
someone you actually care about.
Debian has a good and hard-earned reputation for not messing up
sysadmins' changes; upgrading to systemd - however wonderful it is (and
I confess to having no opinion on that) - without at least a debconf
prompt of a reasonable priority telling them what is about to happen and
offering a bailout, is guaranteed to lose us reputation and users.
It doesn't matter whether we think that's reasonable or not, it is what
will happen.
So, is it actually feasible to provide such a prompt?
Cheers,
Nick
--
Nick Phillips / nick.phillips@otago.ac.nz / 03 479 4195
# These statements are mine, not those of the University of Otago
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