[sword-devel] Packaging (was: I give up)
Troy A. Griffitts
scribe at crosswire.org
Wed May 13 15:54:23 MST 2020
Has anyone tried any of the packaging tools based on containers, like
flatpak?
On 5/13/20 3:30 PM, Michael H wrote:
> On Ubuntu, I've gone to PPA version for LibreOffice... which is a
> newer version than was released under Ubuntu 18 LTS. However, it's not
> as easy to go to PPA for sword apps because there are more
> interactions with dependencies between the sword engine, gnome, etc.
>
> Back in 2002 to 04 time frame: I was trying to build for palmOS, and
> ran into this dependencies won't line up, i need multiple minor
> revisions of the same thing to make everything work. I and ended up
> getting somebody to "staticly compile" apps for me on the linux side,
> so my work on palm wouldn't be falling into dependency gap. It
> increases the size of the package, but no longer depends on anything
> outside the package. In today's environment of massive amounts of RAM
> and disk space, i don't see why any 'application' on linux doesn't do
> this... pulling in the libraries and having an extra copy of them
> makes them far more stable, and it makes them run quicker. It does
> consume more memory and disk space, but the days when there was any
> risk of running out of ram or disk space on desktops are into double
> digits gone by.
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 4:39 PM Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com
> <mailto:greg.hellings at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 4:28 PM Tom Sullivan <info at beforgiven.info
> <mailto:info at beforgiven.info>> wrote:
>
> Greg:
>
> The repositories do not contain the latest versions. For
> example, the
> Debian Buster repository presents Xiphos 4.1, not the latest 4.2.
>
>
> 1) This is the benefit and curse of Debian. It refuses to let new
> versions of packages in that are not bugfix and ONLY bugfix.
> Nothing with new features at all is allowed into a stable/released
> version of Debian. It's a benefit to users who need the stability
> (read: server administrators and people who develop software for
> running on those stable versions of Debian) but it's a terrible
> experience for end users. If you're using Debian anything (other
> than sid, their testing release) for an end-user desktop, then
> you're going to have a bad experience.
>
> 2) This is, again, an issue with the distro, and not with
> Crosswire or Xiphos. There is nothing we can do to affect
> upstream's release cadence and rules. Now, if the Xiphos project
> had enough developer manpower to maintain patches to the 4.1
> series as well as continue development towards 4.2, then maybe
> we'd be able to get a 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 into old Debian versions.
> That's what large projects do (like Debian itself), but we just
> don't have the developer bandwidth to maintain multiple branches
> on any of our software. But none of our software is intended for
> server, long-lived boxes, either. It's all end user focused stuff.
>
>
> That is how I ended up reporting bugs that had been fixed. It
> is a wide
> problem; I mention Xiphos, not as a bad example, but because I
> happened
> to remember the version numbers.
>
>
> The same would be true of Sword. 1.8.1 is not just a bugfix
> release of the 1.8 series. It introduced some minor new
> functionality so, technically, it would not have been permitted
> into the Debian repository if anyone was checking closely. This is
> just how we handle our software, again, because we lack the
> manpower to keep multiple development streams flowing.
>
> I would, again, submit that your issue is actually with your
> chosen distribution. Its documentation appears to be inadequate,
> and it's lulled you into using a distribution that's not targeting
> your use case. You might try running Fedora (or Ubuntu and not
> staying on LTS versions) which have much more generous update
> policies. I can tell you, for instance, that Xiphos compiles very
> nicely on current Fedora versions with a few very simple commands.
> I happen to know this because I maintain both our Xiphos CI
> process and the packages in the repositories for Xiphos. Now, I
> haven't updated the packages to 4.2.1 yet, for Xiphos, because I
> was busy helping with the CI and the release of 4.2.1, but due to
> the CI I know that compiling for Fedora 32 will be a breeze.
>
> Compiling for Ubuntu is a little more of a challenge, because of
> the missing dependencies, but Caleb is working on create a
> dedicated repository on Ubuntu's infrastructure just for that. And
> Caleb, myself, Dom, and Karl are all working to resolve those
> issues so that, in the future, a 4.3 or 4.4 will be able to make
> it back into the Debian repos and eventually into the Ubuntu
> "universe" repositories.
>
> So maybe give us a shot, still, on a distro that's meant for you? :)
>
> --Greg
>
>
> Tom
>
> Tom Sullivan
> info at BeForgiven.INFO
> FAX: 815-301-2835
> ---------------------
>
> On 5/13/20 5:21 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 3:57 PM Tom Sullivan
> <info at beforgiven.info <mailto:info at beforgiven.info>
> > <mailto:info at beforgiven.info <mailto:info at beforgiven.info>>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Y'all:
> >
> > First, I recognize that as a writer and long retired
> developer and
> > engineer (and thus obsolete) that in terms of technical
> issues, I am
> > way
> > out of my league with all you C++ programmers and experts.
> >
> > Second, I want to thank all of you for your hard work.
> Compared to what
> > is available for Windows and Mac users, available Bible
> software and
> > tools are sparse. You work as volunteers and on a
> shoestring budget.
> > Very many thanks. Without your work, I would be back to
> books and paper
> > without being able to search, compare versions, etc.,
> with such ease.
> > Linux users are definitely an under served people group
> and you fill a
> > big need.
> >
> > Some of you may remember my SwordHammer project.
> Frankly, it has
> > crashed
> > and burned. Due to an architecture decision that was not
> the best, it
> > became unwieldy. And now, due to changes in my life, I
> cannot continue,
> > though I had started on a new architecture. This has two
> consequences:
> > 1. There probably is not any longer reason to continue
> on this list
> > much
> > longer.
> > 2. I got an appreciation for the huge problem caused by
> incompatible
> > Linux distros. For example, I did not know that Ubuntu
> users were
> > limited to sudo, instead of being able to run as root.
> >
> > Many of my previous interactions with this list have
> been caused by my
> > use of obsolete versions. I cannot help it. I seem only
> able to install
> > packages from the Debian repository (or download a *.deb
> suitable for
> > Debian Buster and install). I recently tried to compile
> and install
> > Sword (which worked), BibleTime (which crashed), and
> Xiphos (which I
> > was
> > not able to compile by various tries.) There are errors
> in the docs,
> > and
> > discrepancies between docs, and who knows what.) I
> failed. So I am
> > stuck, and that is not mainly your fault. The problem is
> that there is
> > no Linux-wide packaging or installation system. It may
> or may not be
> > technically feasible, I don't know). When things go
> wrong, I often have
> > no idea how to fix them.
> >
> >
> > You really shouldn't have to download any files. You should
> only have to
> > run "sudo apt update && sudo apt install bibletime". Or, if
> you want to
> > compile BibleTime from source but use the packaged Sword
> library, "sudo
> > apt install libsword-dev". Currently, Xiphos is not
> compatible with
> > Debian/Ubuntu because it depends on ancient libraries that
> are not
> > available in those distributions anymore. However, packagers
> for those
> > distros, until recently, were maintaining a heavily patched
> version of
> > Xiphos that was avilable in their repositories. All that was
> needed was
> > "sudo apt install xiphos". No downloading or building or
> manually
> > finding dependencies.
> >
> >
> > So I have two suggestions here, but let me start with an
> analogy.
> > When I
> > have to buy a new vehicle, my concern is not if the seat
> is nice and
> > the
> > radio works and the vanity light works. I want it to
> safely take me
> > where I want to go. If there is a rip in the seat or
> dents in the body
> > or some rust or something, I can live with that. So, I
> am willing to
> > live with what is in the repositories and not waste
> everybody else's
> > time with bug reports. I apologize for doing that. It
> was not
> > intentional, but that is what happened.
> >
> > Suggestion 1: Clean up documentation. Prime exhibit: May
> Crosswire page
> > refers to Sword 1.8.0 with link for months with no
> mention of 1.8.1.
> >
> >
> > I'm not sure where you're looking. This is the download page
> for Sword
> > source http://crosswire.org/sword/develop/index.jsp and it
> mentions
> > 1.8.1 without incident.
> >
> >
> > Suggestion 2: For the more popular distros, provide
> ready-to-go
> > packages, .deb files (or equivalent, such as .rpm) for
> installs and
> > updates, even if they do not hit the repositories until
> later. This
> > will
> > get users access who are not experts. In my opinion, for
> what it is
> > worth, this is at least as important as new features.
> Also allow users
> > an option to automatically check for updates and tell
> where to get a
> > new
> > package. I understand that this takes time and work. I
> would rather get
> > some new features and bug fixes, and be able to get and
> use them, than
> > new features I will never see because I can't compile or
> something. I
> > rather think that others are also in my position as well.
> >
> >
> > This is usually a Very Bad Idea for upstream projects. Every
> distro has
> > its own quirks, foibles, and differences. For instance,
> gtkhtml is still
> > avilable on Fedora but not on Ubuntu or Debian. As such,
> Xiphos can be
> > compiled rather readily on Fedora but not on Debian/Ubuntu
> without heavy
> > patching of the source to disable the editor features. Those
> are details
> > already managed by the packagers of those distributions and
> are quite a
> > nightmare for every upstream project to keep track of. Nor
> is it easy to
> > keep separate the very tiny tweaks that make up the Debian
> -> Ubuntu ->
> > Mint/Pop/etc food chain where downstream distributions
> consume upstream
> > packages in some manner. Providing a build is not something
> upstream
> > projects like Sword ought to do.
> >
> > Should our docs be updated so that they work in those
> distros, where
> > possible? Yes. But it sounds like most of your difficulty
> was with the
> > package manager on the Debian (or Ubuntu?) system you were
> using. For an
> > end user, you should have just "sudo apt install <my
> pacage>" and been
> > able to get along without trouble. The fact you weren't was
> a failure on
> > the part of the distribution. Not on Sword, Crosswire,
> BibleTime, or
> > Xiphos. I have no idea what your ultimate goal is, though,
> so I can't
> > give you more particular details than that.
> >
> > --Greg
> >
> >
> > For what it is worth, and sorry it is so long. Sorry
> again for wasting
> > all your time in the past. God bless you and keep up all
> the good work.
> > It is not perfect, but it is definitely good and I use
> your stuff many
> > hours a week and every day.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Tom Sullivan
> >
> > --
> > Tom Sullivan
> > info at BeForgiven.INFO
> > FAX: 815-301-2835
> > ---------------------
> >
> >
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