Thread: 9.5alpha2 published to trusty-pgdg?

Hi all

Was 9.5alpha2 published to trusty-pgdg, such that a user could get it
with "apt-get install postgresql-9.5" ?

I've seen a few people complaining that their PostgreSQL stopped
working after "aptitude upgrade" with complaints of incompatible
catalog versions, and it turns out they were running 9.5alpha2 and had
it broken by updating to 9.5beta1.

I'm a bit concerned about publishing the alphas in the same repository
and update channel, if that's what happend. It lets people install
them without having to knowingly enable a testing repository or in
some other way having to explicitly understand "we might change the
data format if we feel like it". If they've seen "PostgreSQL 9.5"
floating around they might well not realise it's not actually baked
yet.

--
 Craig Ringer                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

Re: Craig Ringer 2015-10-30 <CAMsr+YGNDGe2GoKOc1ovg15_XeTb0cAJ+JEnJGOtcJu2fj24cw@mail.gmail.com>
> Hi all
>
> Was 9.5alpha2 published to trusty-pgdg, such that a user could get it
> with "apt-get install postgresql-9.5" ?
>
> I've seen a few people complaining that their PostgreSQL stopped
> working after "aptitude upgrade" with complaints of incompatible
> catalog versions, and it turns out they were running 9.5alpha2 and had
> it broken by updating to 9.5beta1.
>
> I'm a bit concerned about publishing the alphas in the same repository
> and update channel, if that's what happend. It lets people install
> them without having to knowingly enable a testing repository or in
> some other way having to explicitly understand "we might change the
> data format if we feel like it". If they've seen "PostgreSQL 9.5"
> floating around they might well not realise it's not actually baked
> yet.

Hi,

it's true that the postgresql-9.5 package is in the normal "main"
repository. However, it's not really usable there without further
tweaks of the sources.list file (or sources.list.d/pgdg.list):

deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ wheezy-pgdg main 9.5

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Apt/FAQ#I_want_to_try_the_beta_version_of_the_next_PostgreSQL_release

Without the "9.5" added there apt(itude) will refuse to install the
postgresql-9.5 package because it can't find the version needed of the
libpq5 package.

Also, no one will get postgresql-9.5 installed just by "apt(itude)
upgrade", that would only update the already-installed packages, and
the "postgresql" meta package is still pointing to postgresql-9.4.

So everyone who's on 9.5 now had actively modified their sources.list
to allow that (or applied some --force-whatever hammer to dpkg).


We've had a "this is beta ymmv" warning in some beta package
descriptions before (iirc in 9.3), but of course we forgot to remove
them when .0 came out, so we refrained from doing that again.

But I just realized that there's an easy way out of the situation: We
do already stow the lib packages of 9.5 into the "9.5" component, we
could as easily move *all* binary packages of the 9.5 source there as
well. That would make then invisible to non-beta users, and wouldn't
change anything for the beta users, because they need to update their
sources.list to include "9.5".

I'll apply that fix to the next 9.5 beta or rc upload.

Christoph
--
cb@df7cb.de | http://www.df7cb.de/

On 1 November 2015 at 05:16, Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> wrote:
> Re: Craig Ringer 2015-10-30 <CAMsr+YGNDGe2GoKOc1ovg15_XeTb0cAJ+JEnJGOtcJu2fj24cw@mail.gmail.com>
>> Hi all
>>
>> Was 9.5alpha2 published to trusty-pgdg, such that a user could get it
>> with "apt-get install postgresql-9.5" ?
>>
>> I've seen a few people complaining that their PostgreSQL stopped
>> working after "aptitude upgrade" with complaints of incompatible
>> catalog versions, and it turns out they were running 9.5alpha2 and had
>> it broken by updating to 9.5beta1.
>
> [snip]
>
> So everyone who's on 9.5 now had actively modified their sources.list
> to allow that (or applied some --force-whatever hammer to dpkg).

Thanks for the explanation, it's appreciated and useful.

I wouldn't be surprised if the people I've seen on Stack Overflow etc
did just that, e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/q/33433088/398670

> We've had a "this is beta ymmv" warning in some beta package
> descriptions before (iirc in 9.3), but of course we forgot to remove
> them when .0 came out, so we refrained from doing that again.

Also, the people who blindly "apt-get install postgresql-9.5" are not
likely to be reading package descriptions.

About the only thing I can think of that'd help would be a preinst
script or debconf question requiring confirmation that they know their
data might not be readable after an upgrade. That suffers from the
same problems as the package text warning, only more intrusive.

> But I just realized that there's an easy way out of the situation: We
> do already stow the lib packages of 9.5 into the "9.5" component, we
> could as easily move *all* binary packages of the 9.5 source there as
> well. That would make then invisible to non-beta users, and wouldn't
> change anything for the beta users, because they need to update their
> sources.list to include "9.5".
>
> I'll apply that fix to the next 9.5 beta or rc upload.

Sounds sensible.

--
 Craig Ringer                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

On 1 November 2015 at 05:16, Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> wrote:

> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Apt/FAQ#I_want_to_try_the_beta_version_of_the_next_PostgreSQL_release

I've added a note there to inform users that the format might change.
People from other DBMSes - pretty much any other DBMS - tend to be
astonished that the file format changes incompatibly between releases,
especially between alpha and final for the same major. Given all the
buzz we get around new features and the way people leap to try them,
it's IMO worth making sure they understand that they need to think a
bit more when using a prerelease.

Added a following FAQ entry about the catversion, for when people
upgrade to a version with an incompatible format.

Feel free to remove if you think they're inappropriate/misplaced, or
copy-edit as desired. Hope it's helpful.




--
 Craig Ringer                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

Re: Craig Ringer 2015-11-02 <CAMsr+YGUp3tDe1LghG+a0oUWDx4Wz3S1C==ZmhnrcH1GYf-U9w@mail.gmail.com>
> On 1 November 2015 at 05:16, Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Apt/FAQ#I_want_to_try_the_beta_version_of_the_next_PostgreSQL_release
>
> I've added a note there to inform users that the format might change.
> People from other DBMSes - pretty much any other DBMS - tend to be
> astonished that the file format changes incompatibly between releases,
> especially between alpha and final for the same major. Given all the
> buzz we get around new features and the way people leap to try them,
> it's IMO worth making sure they understand that they need to think a
> bit more when using a prerelease.
>
> Added a following FAQ entry about the catversion, for when people
> upgrade to a version with an incompatible format.
>
> Feel free to remove if you think they're inappropriate/misplaced, or
> copy-edit as desired. Hope it's helpful.

It's indeed helpful and well-worded, thanks!

Christoph
--
cb@df7cb.de | http://www.df7cb.de/

Re: To Craig Ringer 2015-10-31 <20151031211657.GB24389@msg.df7cb.de>
> But I just realized that there's an easy way out of the situation: We
> do already stow the lib packages of 9.5 into the "9.5" component, we
> could as easily move *all* binary packages of the 9.5 source there as
> well. That would make then invisible to non-beta users, and wouldn't
> change anything for the beta users, because they need to update their
> sources.list to include "9.5".
>
> I'll apply that fix to the next 9.5 beta or rc upload.

Fwiw, this has now been applied to the 9.5 and 9.6 packages.

Christoph
--
cb@df7cb.de | http://www.df7cb.de/