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

[Hamish]

Ivan wrote:
> > Ubuntu distribution packages stick with 1.7 version which is
> > obsolete.

Alex:
> That's a function of inheriting official packages from
> upstream Debian. 

which is a function of nobody providing the Debian packages
there..

> Get newer versions into Debian and it trickles down.

which is a function of some of _us_ stepping up to help.
the situation with qgis in debian has been the same for years.
:-(


> 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.

if you need something sync'd in the DebianGIS side of things,
let me know, &/or ping the DebianGIS mailing list. Frankie is
usually on IRC too.


> >> 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.

many of you already know this well, but since there is divergence here
I thought to explain the Debian convention anyway for those that don't,

> Testing - where to put stuff when you're not sure if it will work.

in the Debian world that's the "experimental" branch, not "testing".
"testing" is automatically populated from unstable pkgs a fixed amount
of time after it has been uploaded, with no (or at least fewer) bugs vs.
the last version, and no other dependency conflicts.

> Unstable - where you put stuff you want people to use.

in the Debian world it's simply where new & untested packages get
uploaded. I would not recommend for a new user to use Debian's
unstable branch unless they knew enough to dig themselves out of
trouble. (it's called "sid" [from Toy Story] for a reason, 'cause it
breaks stuff)

> 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).

in the Debian world "stable" simply the "testing" branch after some time
(often ~6 months) of new version freeze, which then gets blessed with
a version number. Similar to Ubuntu LTS release cycles, often ~18 months
between versions.

The last Debian/stable was released two days ago, and so as of now
the unstable branch is finally unfrozen for new packages. It's sad that
1.8.0 is not in it, but there's no magic pool of people to do it for us.


thanks,
Hamish