B2 Softwareupdate

[LudwigVan]

So, what can I say. You decided to ship a B3. Thats nice. But from what I see its mainly a major software update. So, guys, it would be nice to also distribute the new flashy features to B2 users.

What do you think?

L.

[johannes]

B3 is actually mainly a hardware update, with performance as the main difference. However, some software differences are present (such as the photo album) and more are to come. We are currently contemplating the possility to expose the B3 software to B2 users (hence offering the same for B2 users via upgrades) but it isn't easy for various technical reasons. Will let you know when we have worked on it for a while if it works out well.

[ryz]

I at least would be totally happy if the update required an reinstall of the OS as long as you do not touch /home. If you have not tweaked the Bubba much except from the web page it should not be so much new to setup and if you have tweaked it a lot by hand then you should be able to do that again. It would anyhow be impossible for you to secure an upgrade with things that people have tweaked by hand. What could be problematic is to get the same user id for all the users since this is really important. But saving such a list in the /home folder and use it after the reinstall should not be that difficult I guess.

[Ubi]

Basically you just manually add users with forced UIDs back into the newly updated systems. It's a trivial job indeed.

[LudwigVan]

Bump.

I want to reinstall the B2 now for several reasons. Now the question is: wouldn't it be nice to update the system completely? Hm, only the update is missing...

So, what about the official update announced?

L.

[johannes]

Hi all,

Note that their is no promised update, although we recognize the need for it. I am sorry if my previous post in this thread was misunderstood, we did test the upgrade and found it very difficult, there actually is no straight upgrade path anymore since Debian changed aptitude. Having said that, I fully agree that we should at least provide some security updates for B2 users. However it will be as an install image only, for the above mentioned reasons.

We have been through a rough patch lately but are recovering now, and development speed is now raising again. After the next B3 release (due this summer) we _hope_ to be able to release a B2 <-> B3 merge for B2 users, as install image. But before knowing what resources we have then I can't promise anything yet. We'll keep you posted on the progress.

[Lars akerman]

Your answer in "How to install Squeezebox Server 7.5.3" a week a go:
"It is not yet released for B2, but coming any week now."
sounds like a promise? Is this still valid?
/L

[johannes]

Yep, the squeezebox we'll do separately, this one is coming soon. Testing now. Hopefully releasing this week if we don't run into any major issues.

[Lars akerman]

At the moment my Squeezebox is changing firmware everytime I switch between Mysqueezebox.com and my local music files, so the squeezebox update is very welcome

Sad that Squeezebox classic and Duet can not be used with spotify, but a solution is to switch to WiMP that do support all Squezebox versions. I am testing it out now and it looks promising.

The only thing I now lack in my Bubba 2 is improved 3G USB modem support.

[RandomUsername]

Hi all,

Note that their is no promised update, although we recognize the need for it. I am sorry if my previous post in this thread was misunderstood, we did test the upgrade and found it very difficult, there actually is no straight upgrade path anymore since Debian changed aptitude. Having said that, I fully agree that we should at least provide some security updates for B2 users. However it will be as an install image only, for the above mentioned reasons.

We have been through a rough patch lately but are recovering now, and development speed is now raising again. After the next B3 release (due this summer) we _hope_ to be able to release a B2 <-> B3 merge for B2 users, as install image. But before knowing what resources we have then I can't promise anything yet. We'll keep you posted on the progress.

Johannes, that is really disappointing. I don't believe anything was promised but I can find quotes from both you and Tor that suggest it was something you were working towards. From what you're saying here, it sounds like you never had any intention of providing an update once you'd done an initial test and found it too difficult.

At the end of the day, a server running Debian should be upgradeable as long as Debian supports the hardware. I'm not aware of the changes you mention that Debian have made to aptitude but I find it hard to believe that every other server in the world running Debian Etch couldn't be easily upgraded to Lenny or Squeeze. Could you explain in more detail what kind of problems you encountered? There is talk of a community build on the forums already and given your fairly definitive response here it looks like that's the path we're going have to look at.

Yours disappointedly,

Darren.

[RandomUsername]

Hi Johannes,

One week later.

Could you explain in more detail what kind of problems you encountered?

This might be helpful for those of us who want to explore a community supported update.

Thanks.

[Ubi]

This community distro is all fun and games but it's kinda useless unless someone has the time to fix these problems that the excito crew already encountered. I'm quite sure that, if this were a 20 min fix, it would have worked by now. So, if you are willing to spend the time to provide the software, I have all the bandwidth and hosting capabilities to get it all published.

What really would be useful was if a few users had a face-to-face chat with some Excito people to figure out what needs to be done. But that means everyone gets on a plane, which is kinda awkward Still, this issue with providing software updates is something that will not go away in the future, as debian will keep on upgrading and their install base will nominally only get bigger. In my opinion Excito underestimated the required resources for this support issue, but this is the situation we are all in and complaining isn't getting anyone any updates.

[RandomUsername]

This community distro is all fun and games but it's kinda useless unless someone has the time to fix these problems that the excito crew already encountered.

Well until they answer the question as to what problems they had we won't know, will we?

but this is the situation we are all in and complaining isn't getting anyone any updates.

I can and will complain, but I'm also putting forward a productive solution along with a few others here.

[Ubi]

True

I just now found out the situation is a bit more severe than I thought, so a community version might just be the only thing that could take us where we want to go (hell I'm still waiting for my update for the B1).

[ubbe]

i dont think the Excito people want anyone to make a community distro. As i see they work similar to apple and want to lock in customers. There is no money in provide old customers up to date software. Im realy dissapointed whid this and will go for another hardware solusion insted. I think a ITX Atomhardware will do the work better, using just slightly more power and give a lot of usabel software distr that you can change when or if you want. Prestanda/Watt is mutch better also and value for your money aswell. To continue whid a software that is EOL is a NO-GO for me.
Best Regards
Ubbe