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Bug#649240: Upcoming upgrade issues with GNU Screen for Wheezy



On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 05:24:34PM +0000, Justin B Rye wrote:
> > Axel Beckert wrote:
> >> Possible suggestions for the release notes: Use tmux instead of screen
> >> for the dist-upgrade. Not really a laudable note for screen, but I
> >> have currently no better idea.

> Would it make sense to recommend putting screen on hold and upgrading
> it separately after the dist-upgrade is finished?  That wouldn't work
> for something like udev or gdm3, but it sounds like the simplest
> strategy for a "leaf" package like screen.

> (We'll need material for the release notes eventually, but first
> screen 4.1.0 is obviously going to need to put some warnings and
> recommendations in a NEWS.Debian file.)

Any such mitigation strategies will be a poor substitute for having screen
actually work properly across upgrades.  There is nowhere that we can put
such a recommendation that we can ensure users will see it before they start
the upgrade; and once they've started the upgrade inside of a screen
session, it's too late to put the package on hold / start the upgrade
outside of screen / do anything at all except hope you don't have to
reattach to the screen to answer the debconf/conffile prompts and complete
the upgrade.

Given that in other quarters I'm consistently hearing that screen has
stagnated and been overtaken by tmux, it's incredibly bad form for the new
upstream version to have broken protocol compatibility like this.  I think
the screen maintainer should insist on upstream fixing protocol
compatibility before allowing this version into unstable.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com                                     vorlon@debian.org

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