Updating the release notes

[mwooding@thecity.sfsu.edu (Miguel Wooding SF Ten.Union)]

The release notes that are at
http://www.debian.org/releases/frozen/i386/release-notes are still
version 2.2.15, dated 25 May 2000.  Is there a newer version?  There
are a couple of items in the release notes that have been discussed in
this list but have not yet been corrected.  (By the way, is there a
way to submit a bug to the release notes? I didn't see it in the bug
tracking system.)

(1) In upgrading to perl-5.005, any package that has an explicit
dependency on perl-5.005 (or a dependency on another package depending 
on perl-5.005, like debconf) gets removed if you dist-upgrade
directly. A work-around is to upgrade perl first, then remove perl,
then dist-upgrade.  Like so:

apt-get update
apt-get install perl 
apt-get remove perl
apt-get dist-upgrade

See below for an earlier discussion of the issue.

There may be other steps that are recommended before dist-upgrading.
I don't know whether it made any difference or not, but I started by
upgrading apt and dpkg. Someone else suggested (on debian-user)
upgrading ldso and libc6 before doing the dist-upgrade.  As far as I
know that's not necessary, but it may be.  I also needed to upgrade
console-tools to prevent it from being removed, but I haven't looked
into that further to see what caused that and whether it would likely
be an issue for other folks. Perhaps someone in the know could comment
on the various problematic upgrade issues before the release notes are
finalized.

(2) As I understand it, there will be two versions of the cd images,
one that is allowed to be exported from the US to other countries and
a second that is not.  CD-ROM distributors are encouraged to produce
the non-exportable versions, not the exportable versions, as the only
restriction on these is they cannot be produced inside the US and then
exported.  Vendors producing CD-ROM's from outside the US can sell
them anywhere, and most vendors producing them from inside the US are
selling them here, not overseas.  This seems to me to be an eminently
reasonable recommendation.

If this understanding is correct, then the discussion in the release
notes is misleading.  It states:

  The Official CD-ROM distribution ships as three binary package
  CD-ROMs, containing the "main" and "contrib" sections. If a vendor
  adds "non-US/main" or portions of "non-free" or "non-US/non-free"
  sections to a CD set, there may be four binary CDs.

This should be changed to explain that the recommended official
version that includes non-US, and that there is also another official
version that is exportable from the US.  Again, as I understand it,
either of these versions is three CD's.  Then it can go on to explain
why there might be four binary CD's.

Also, is it correct that the official CD includes contrib?  I thought
it only included main.

(3) There were suggestions in debian-devel that we document the fact
that a newer version of freeciv and (and perhaps other packages?) is
in woody.  See, for example,
http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-devel-0007/msg00032.html.
I don't know whether this suggestion was rejected or just forgotten;
I don't have a strong feeling about it.

Thanks.
--Miguel

Earlier discussion about perl upgrade issues:

mwooding@thecity.sfsu.edu (Miguel Wooding SF Ten.Union) writes:
> Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr> writes:
> 
> > On Sat, Jun 24, 2000 at 04:20:28AM -0700, Miguel Wooding SF Ten.Union wrote:
> > > It appears that the problem is that perl-5.005 depends on
> > > perl-5.005-base, which in turn conflicts with perl.  apt doesn't seem
> > > to figure out that it can upgrade perl to the new dummy package,
> > > install perl-5.004 to satisfy the dummy perl's dependency, and then
> > > remove perl to satisfy the conflict with perl-5.005-base.
> > 
> > That problem still exists? Darn... it shouldn't happen.
> > 
> > We'll document it better in the Release Notes if it doesn't get fixed.
> 
> As I look at it further, it seems like it's a fairly substantial
> problem.  If I understand correctly, it means that any package that
> Depends: on perl-5.005 (or, as in the case of scwm, on any other
> package that Depends on perl-5.005, recursively) can't be upgraded
> using apt-get.  That's a substantial number of packages.  Just to get
> a rough idea, I counted some of them:
> 
> $ apt-cache dumpavail|egrep "^Depends:.*perl-5.005"|wc -l
>      79
> $ apt-cache dumpavail|egrep "^Depends:.*debconf"|wc -l
>      33
> 
> Now, not all of these packages are necessarily in slink, so upgrading
> might not be an issue, but then again there are others (again, like
> scwm) that are farther removed and aren't counted here.  A couple
> other packages that don't upgrade include gnuplot and lynx.
> Undoubtedly there are more.  (I think that lynx, at least, is silently
> left at the previous version rather than being removed or upgraded.  I
> don't know whether others also get removed, as scwm does, as a result
> of this bug.  Removal is clearly a much more serious problem than
> simple failure to upgrade, but the latter seems like a concern as
> well.  When I have time later I'll try to look at that further...)
> 
> Debian is (justifiably) much-vaunted for its easy upgrade path; this
> would significantly tarnish its reputation on this score.  I know
> potato is about to release, but it would be really nice to have
> upgrades work properly.  I suppose documenting that they don't work
> right is better than nothing, but it's still not optimal.  I hope that
> I'm over-estimating the extent of the problem but I fear that I am
> not.