[arch-releng] 2009.02 name ideas

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 15:07:43 +0100
Gerhard Brauer <gerbra at archlinux.de> wrote:

> Am Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:10:56 +0100
> schrieb Dieter Plaetinck <dieter at plaetinck.be>:
> 
> > On Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:37:49 -0600
> > Aaron Griffin <aaronmgriffin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > What are your arguments against putting codenames "on" the iso's?
> > hard to implement cleanly/maintain ?
> 
> IMHO yes. We have had this on the December 2008 ISOs (and there only
> on the isolinux splash msg-files). Text in this messages files are
> (for color things) escaped by control code, so editing in some
> editors could completely break them.

We can always just stick to the default colors (eg no fancy control
characters)

> On grub we have never used (iso) version numbers or codenames.
> On /etc/issue (in the LiveCD) AFAIK we used it last on Overlord (and
> the FrosCon).
> So we have to automate this to put the correct versions/codenames in
> several files. And this is something which would get forgotten often
> IMHO - so all laugh at us when in 2019 the ISOs tell: I'm 2009.04...
> 
> I'm now (after thinking and reading the mails) against any "branding"
> the ISOs/Images. **Only** in /arch directory and in the iso9660
> structure (where the sqfs files live) i like to see a release version
> scheme like 2009.02-1 - only to identify the ISO (if one have a
> problem to install so we could ask in forums etc: Do you use the
> latest ISO? Uh, how can i check this? Look at: cat /arch/release or
> mount the ISO and do a: cat /media/cd/release.
> 
> I agree with Aaron that we demonstrate the Arch "rolling release"
> better when we don't use any things that offers somewhat: Hey, they
> have releases...
> 
> 
> So:	-1 for versions/codenames in any splash or message file
> 	+1 for putting the release month/revision in above mentioned
> 	text files (if we automate this).
> 
> > Dieter
> 
> Gerhard


hey what about (only on the livecd) putting a file /arch/release
containing the version number, and then in /etc/rc.sysinit we can do
cat /arch/release 2>/dev/null. so that will work on every release and
won't be harmful on normal systems that don't have /arch/release.

In the same way we could in aif look if /arch/release exists and if so,
display it in the header or whatever.

We could also do the same for codenames (a la 'overlord', "don't panic"
etc): check if the file exists and if not don't do anything with it.
this way we can use the same packages for the livecd and installed
systems.

Dieter