B2 Software update - Excito's plans
Posted: 27 Apr 2011, 03:44
Hi all,
First off, I want to say that I understand the criticism you let out in this thread. You all have valid points. Furthermore I want to emphasize the kind words and loyal support you have shown us over the years, and continue to show us, even in this thread (somewhat surprisingly).
We have also received emails from some of you to support@excito.com, now latest from Ubi where he clarifies how some of you feel and what you think needs to be done. So I will try to clear a few things up here:
Communication
One of the main issues here is probably that Excito didn’t communicate with you the past months or so. There are reasons behind this – we lost 50% of this company’s founders lately when PA and Tor decided to leave us, so I and Magnus got quite busy with day-to-day operations. I’m now responsible for development, but Tor has some big shoes to fill. This is straightening up as we go by, but anyways this is no excuse and this is not how we want to operate. So consider this point taken. And if you at any time feel we are missing something don’t hesitate to notify us. My direct contacts are in the footer below, anytime.
B2 updates
As I said before we recognize the need for updating the B2. It is not good that we are so far behind but let’s focus on the future and see what we can do:
We have been short on development resources but this is slowly improving now. Carl is currently working on a B3 upgrade with a few fixes and new features, and after that we decided to schedule the next B2 upgrade. We will then merge the B2 and B3 code base. Hence, B2 will get squeeze and all the (software) features B3 has today, difference will only be hardware related and some logos etc. This work is aimed to start in june, when the B3 2.3 release is done. The amount of work is not known but we aim for release in the third quarter this year. We hope for august but can’t promise. (However, we do promise to keep you updated.) I hope you can bare that long.
However, this upgrade will be as installer only, for technical reasons as I mentioned before. I don’t fully understand this myself, but I’ll tell what I know for those interested: Debian has changed parts of the apt system, for instance adding “breaks” in package handling. This makes it impossible to directly apt-get update from etch to squeeze. The only theoretical solution would be to go via lenny, reboot and then update from lenny to squeeze. However this poses too many risks, keep in mind that this _must_ work also for users who are scared of the command line. The matrix of possibilities to test before daring to release this is simply too large. Let me know if you need deeper details and I’ll have Carl explain.
So, this update will be installer only, but as you know you don’t have to wipe the disk. The installer has settings so you can just re-install the system partition. After recreating the users, everything is as it was before. I hope you can live with this. And after doing this change, updates for B2 will follow B3’s release path and will be a minor issue, both for you and for us.
So what do you say? Good or bad? Do you have other suggestions on what path we should take here?
With bubba love,
/Johannes
+46 734 071793 | johannes.book@excito.com | skype: johannes_book
First off, I want to say that I understand the criticism you let out in this thread. You all have valid points. Furthermore I want to emphasize the kind words and loyal support you have shown us over the years, and continue to show us, even in this thread (somewhat surprisingly).
We have also received emails from some of you to support@excito.com, now latest from Ubi where he clarifies how some of you feel and what you think needs to be done. So I will try to clear a few things up here:
Communication
One of the main issues here is probably that Excito didn’t communicate with you the past months or so. There are reasons behind this – we lost 50% of this company’s founders lately when PA and Tor decided to leave us, so I and Magnus got quite busy with day-to-day operations. I’m now responsible for development, but Tor has some big shoes to fill. This is straightening up as we go by, but anyways this is no excuse and this is not how we want to operate. So consider this point taken. And if you at any time feel we are missing something don’t hesitate to notify us. My direct contacts are in the footer below, anytime.
B2 updates
As I said before we recognize the need for updating the B2. It is not good that we are so far behind but let’s focus on the future and see what we can do:
We have been short on development resources but this is slowly improving now. Carl is currently working on a B3 upgrade with a few fixes and new features, and after that we decided to schedule the next B2 upgrade. We will then merge the B2 and B3 code base. Hence, B2 will get squeeze and all the (software) features B3 has today, difference will only be hardware related and some logos etc. This work is aimed to start in june, when the B3 2.3 release is done. The amount of work is not known but we aim for release in the third quarter this year. We hope for august but can’t promise. (However, we do promise to keep you updated.) I hope you can bare that long.
However, this upgrade will be as installer only, for technical reasons as I mentioned before. I don’t fully understand this myself, but I’ll tell what I know for those interested: Debian has changed parts of the apt system, for instance adding “breaks” in package handling. This makes it impossible to directly apt-get update from etch to squeeze. The only theoretical solution would be to go via lenny, reboot and then update from lenny to squeeze. However this poses too many risks, keep in mind that this _must_ work also for users who are scared of the command line. The matrix of possibilities to test before daring to release this is simply too large. Let me know if you need deeper details and I’ll have Carl explain.
So, this update will be installer only, but as you know you don’t have to wipe the disk. The installer has settings so you can just re-install the system partition. After recreating the users, everything is as it was before. I hope you can live with this. And after doing this change, updates for B2 will follow B3’s release path and will be a minor issue, both for you and for us.
So what do you say? Good or bad? Do you have other suggestions on what path we should take here?
With bubba love,
/Johannes
+46 734 071793 | johannes.book@excito.com | skype: johannes_book