[Hamara-devel] apt-add-repository

[Vikas Tara]

On 21/04/15 00:50, shirish wrote:
> in-line :-
>
> On 04/20/2015 07:46 PM, Vikas Tara wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
> Hi,
>
>> Having just reinstalled my media centre to hamara 1.0.1, I needed to 
>> install the latest XBMC.
>>
>> We're currently shipping quite an old version - whereas I had 
>> previously been using the ubuntu XBMC ppa.
>
> Which version of xbmc are you shipping ?
2:12.3+dfsg1-3ubuntu1
>>
>>
>> Now, editing apt sources to allow the use of that same ppa for me is 
>> straightforward - but it did open up some questions:
>>
>> 1. Should we customise apt-add-respoitory so that you can add ubuntu 
>> ppa's directly with that command?
>>
>> 2. Should we mirror ppa's?
>
> On  Ubuntu-end it's all upto you.
I favour (1)
>
>>
>> 3. Should we support ppa's at all (Debian don't seem to)?
>
> Umm.. dunno,  but debian has a non-free external repo. called 
> deb-multimedia which works for the XBMC scenario.
>
> see http://deb-multimedia.org/
>
> you just need to add to your debian /etc/apt/sources.list  the stanza 
> as shared by deb-multimedia,  download the deb-multimedia keyring and 
> you can have the latest and the greatest kodi (name change from xbmc)
>
> This is the version in debian atm :-
>
> [$] apt-cache policy xbmc
> xbmc:
>   Installed: 2:13.2+dfsg1-4
>   Candidate: 2:13.2+dfsg1-4
>   Version table:
>  *** 2:13.2+dfsg1-4 0
>         600 http://httpredir.debian.org//debian/ jessie/main amd64 
> Packages
>           1 http://httpredir.debian.org//debian/ unstable/main amd64 
> Packages
>
> As can be seen it is installed on my system.
>
> The upstream version is something like 14.2 so there is a vast gap 
> there for sure. I have asked the same but am a bit doubtful if they 
> will do something or be able to do something. See 
> http://bugs.debian.org/783037
>
>  Previously the app. had an embedded ffmpeg library while Debian has 
> libav.  While ffmpeg has again come into the mainline repo. now still 
> some issues might be remaining.  If the maintainer gets time I hope to 
> get a reply soonish :)
>
That's still a very old version so from a multimedia perspective would 
push me towards a +1 for supporting PPA's
>>
>> Interested in other people's views.
>>
>> I personally like the flexibility of supporting ppa's - it gives our 
>> user base access to newer packages and greater freedom of choice.
>
> There are lots and lots of third-party apt repositories for Debian as 
> well.  What we should probably look for both in medium-term as well as 
> long-term to make those packages stay in Debian's repo. so all and any 
> headaches with package stability becomes theirs and the delta remains 
> small.
>
> I know of many sites which have debian repos, putting that together 
> would be a manmoth task though. Just to share, here's one of cairo :-
>
> http://cairo-compmgr.tuxfamily.org/download/debian-packages/
>
> You can also find a few mentioned at 
> https://wiki.debian.org/UnofficialRepositories but that listing is far 
> from complete and doubt it will ever be as such links need lot of 
> maintenance . Once we find few, we would have to get their e-mail 
> addresses, put up a script which crawls through all repositories and 
> see which are working or not and if after few days they don't respond 
> for one reason or other drop those from our web-pages.
>
>  The other part is how to support these third-party sources or 
> repositories because at times things will and do go wrong. Do we 
> become a sort of gate-keeper of these repositories or just share the 
> links and say it's your luck if they work or not.
>
> What happens as and when conflicts happen. Debian follows shared 
> library transitions which these third-party repos. will not so 
> conflicts are bound to happen.
>
> See https://release.debian.org/transitions/
>
> The only solution would be to constantly monitor the third-party 
> repos. the package itself,  Debian Library transitions
>
> While this is possible for say 100-200 packages with some difficulty 
> it would probably be close to  impossible if we have those many 
> third-party APTs.  being constantly monitored on top of things we 
> already want to do.
>
> BTW this might also be interesting to you.  I will start dumping the 
> links on the wiki,  just have no idea how to make it easy/comfortable 
> for developers who would want these resources.
> https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA

I like the idea of flexibility for the user - so supporting PPA even in 
a debian base would make sense to me - but for that to work we would 
need to maintain some compatibility with Ubuntu in terms of package 
versions.

Lot's of third party repo's is not really that helpful for us if we want 
to make the journey easy for the user. Would have to look a bit closer 
at the state of those repos.

Once we have a debain base to play with, we can start exploring this a 
bit further.

For hamara 1.x however, I propose making the changes to apt-add-respoitory




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