[Qgis-developer] Could ubuntugis PPA be a recommended repository for QGIS 2.0 on Ubuntu ?

[Alex Mandel]

On 05/06/2013 07:40 AM, Ivan Mincik wrote:
> On 05/06/2013 03:50 PM, Jürgen E. Fischer wrote:
>> Hi Ivan,
>>
>> On Mon, 06. May 2013 at 14:58:55 +0200, Ivan Mincik wrote:
>>> I wonder if ubuntugis PPA could be a recommended and only one repository
>>> for QGIS 2.0 on Ubuntu instead of distribution packaged version and
>>> package from 'http://qgis.org/debian'.
>>
>> Recommended: ok.
>> Only: why?
>>
>> I don't see the problem with a less intrusive version (ie. qgis on plain
>> ubuntu) and a more intrusive version (ie. qgis on ubuntugis).
>
> Ubuntu distribution packages stick with 1.7 version which is obsolete.
>

That's a function of inheriting official packages from upstream Debian. 
Get newer versions into Debian and it trickles down.

>>
>> Switching between the same versions from different repositories might be a
>> problem, but I suppose that doesn't happen often.

I think new users get confused about which one they really want and the 
reality is most actually want the Master builds because of features (but 
that's impractical because of stability). So we should make one of the 
options the Recommended. For me this has always been ubuntugis-unstable, 
primarily because the newer gdal builds support the formats people are 
trying to work with and some of the nastier bugs occur there (if you 
can't read/write your data everything else is pointless).

>>
>> Maintaining both versions wasn't a big problem in the past, so I don't expect it
>> be come one in future.
>
> Maybe a bug fixing could be easier when you deal for example with lesser
> GDAL versions. Also when a time goes on distribution libraries goes
> older and more version dependent workarounds must be provided (for
> example GDAL 1.10 has better support for PostGIS raster and SpatiaLite)
>
>>
>> The packages are only built on release, with the current dependencies at that
>> point - and only updated, when manually when necessary.  But that also applies
>> to both repositories.
>>
>
> PPA build could be less error prone than self made PBuilder. I am often
> not sure if my pbuilder updated build deps when building packages
> depending each other.
>
>
>>
>>> What needs to be done ?:
>>
>>> 1. Fine tuned Debian 'control' file to prevent conflicting installation of
>>>     packages after upgrading from distribution packages to UbuntuGIS
>>>     (this is the case for example in GDAL)
>>
>> 0. Report those problems.
>
> Yes, I am going to fix them in my PPA and send a patch. But I am not
> sure where reports for PPAs should be submitted.
>
http://trac.osgeo.org/ubuntugis/

Unless it's an error in the DebianGIS version which we pull from their 
git repo. I need to go looking for where to report those besides mailing 
list and IRC.


>>
>>
>>> 2. More clearly described relation between ubuntugis-stable and
>>>     ubuntugis-unstable repositories (when the packages move from unstable to
>>>     stable ...)
>>
>> Yes, that would be nice to know - I only upload to ubuntugis-unstable ;)
>

That is the correct place. Sadly the naming convention borrowed from 
Debian causes nothing but confusion.
Testing - where to put stuff when you're not sure if it will work.
Unstable - where you put stuff you want people to use.
Stable - where we move things to from Unstable when a newer version is 
staged to go into unstable, so that if you want to stick to the older 
one you can by switching to stable. Or if you need to get the older 
version or older deps for some reason (regressions).

> What I am missing for PPAs is some kind of wiki where these informations
> could be placed.
>

http://trac.osgeo.org/ubuntugis/

Thanks,
Alex