[leafnode-list] Re: no archive messages

[Matthias Andree]

Mark Brown <broonie at sirena.org.uk> writes:

> On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 11:05:45PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
>
>> It cannot be a drop-in, since the hash function for Message-IDs is
>> different (making message.id/NNN/ assume a different layout), internal
>> file formats change and some filenames of internal book-keeping files
>> have also changed.
>
> That all comes under the sort of thing I'd really expect a package to
> take care of for the user.  Someone using a Leafnode package via NNTP
> shouldn't see any of that.

He'll see some changes if he chats NNTP directly, but hopefully his
newsreader won't expose any of this.

What I'm saying is that the leafnode1 -> leafnode2 upgrade isn't
trivial and requires special attention on the machine where ln2 replaces
a ln1 package -- whoever pays the attention ("packager" is the more
convenient option for the end user, of course) -- oh, and filters need
to be re-done, too.

> Debian doesn't support downgrades at all but yes, warning about this is
> possibly a good idea.

That doesn't prevent the user from using dpkg or some front-end to
remove leafnode2, then remove the repo' from apt.sources and finally
request leafnode which will then install some 1.X version again. I'm not
sure that fetchnews -f and texpire -r get the downgrade right, I've
never tried it, and never cared.

> There's "fetchnews -f --" to update the active file, as mentioned in the
> upgrade notes.

Yes, and probably some internal fiddling that isn't documented anywhere
but needed in case the user tries the update in order to solve a problem
he's having. Some do.

-- 
Matthias Andree