[arch-releng] 2009.02 name ideas

[Aaron Griffin]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Dieter Plaetinck <dieter at plaetinck.be> wrote:
> 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.

I guess my biggest qualm here is that it's kinda difficult to pepper
the release version around every place. This seems like a fairly clean
solution, but it we get into the habit of adding it to /etc/issue and
things like that, it could get annoying (I envision bug reports about
us missing a file or two, and needing to rebuild ISOs for something so
minor)

If we add a file (I like /etc/arch-release better, FYI) we could
incorporate it into the initscripts somehow... and maybe into the
installer itself.