References: <86c7a81e-1640-7f82-9e13-dfdbe1aad07b@gmail.com>
 <877dpnnxcu.fsf@ungleich.ch>
 <6ce1e9200bc916ef98e6132cd907d07660fcf174.camel@cogitri.dev>
 <2478872.my5MpkESCV@nanabozho>
User-agent: mu4e 1.4.13; emacs 27.1
From: Nico Schottelius <nico.schottelius@ungleich.ch>
To: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Cc: ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org, Rasmus Thomsen <oss@cogitri.dev>
Subject: Re: Implement versioned names for major libraries to ease upgrade
 process
In-reply-to: <2478872.my5MpkESCV@nanabozho>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2020 12:16:47 +0100
Message-ID: <874kkrnujk.fsf@ungleich.ch>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org> writes:
>> > if we are already doing that, why do we not do it for the linux
>> > kernel?
>>
>> Because maintaining multiple kernels is a lot of work because they're
>> released relatively often and we have to rebuild all modules (e.g. zfs)
>> against new kernel versions.
>
> I don't think they propose maintaining multiple kernels in parallel per se,
> but instead versioning the package (with a provides linux-lts=${pkgver}) so
> that older kernels can stick around if a newer kernel has a regression.

Correct - it's not about maintaining them, but to `apk upgrade` without
being forced to reboot, because some modules are missing after the
upgrade.

I'd imagine something on the lines of:

a)
    "on kernel upgrade, do not remove linux-lts-$(uname -r)"

    However all other older versions can be replaced.

    This would already solve a major pain point.

or b)
   Keep all previous kernel versions and let the user delete old
   versions manually

   I think this is +/- what Debian is doing. It results in a very long
   grub list and is annoying to cleanup, but it also give a lot of
   security, being able to switch back to an older version.


I think (a) is cleaner, but probably more complicated to implement, as
(b) could just mean that the package *name* differs and they all provide
the linux-kernel.

Cheers,

Nico

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