Policies/SoftwareMedia
Aus Mandriva Community Wiki
This page documents the purpose and usage of the different software sources (aka "media" or "software channels") provided by Mandriva.
[bearbeiten] Mandriva Linux 2007 public or semi-public media
[bearbeiten] /main/release
- Description
- The /main/release media is the main distribution media, containing all the supported packages initially released with the distribution. Add this media if you wish to access the full range of supported packages, beyond those on your installation disc(s). This media can be made available on your system with the help of the Mirror Finder tool or by using the rpmdrake media configuration tool to add "Distribution sources".
- Availability
- This media is available on all public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are supported by Mandriva (provided the updates packages from /main/updates are installed if available).
- Maintainer
- This media is controlled exclusively by the Mandriva Engineering Department. It is built from the Cooker project and totally frozen once the official product is released. No changes or updates can be made to this media. All updates go in /main/updates.
[bearbeiten] /main/testing
- Description
- The /main/testing media is designed to host post-release updates before they are officially tested and released. Add this media if you wish to help test updates. We recommend not using this media on mission-critical systems, or if you are not comfortable resolving potential problems with these updates. Please report problems with these packages through Bugzilla. Please note that this media is not intended for testing packages destined for /main/backports. This media can be made available on your system with the help of the Mirror Finder tool.
- Availability
- This media should be available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is populated by the official package maintainers. There is absolutely no warranty that packages in this media are validated. They can be changed at any time. This media contains candidate updates for packages from the /main/release media. Mandriva QA team works from this media to validate packages before they are moved to the official /main/updates. It is also the correct place to put candidate update packages if you wish to allow regular users to test them.
[bearbeiten] /main/updates (also accessible as /MandrivaLinux/official/updates/2007.0/i586/media/main/updates)
- Description
- This media contains regular security and bug fix updates. It should be available on your system automatically if you have run MandrivaUpdate or the rpmdrake "Add..." tool. All users should add this media.
- Availability
- This media is available on all public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is controlled exclusively by the Mandriva Engineering Department. It is populated by the Maintenance and Security Team for the product. No changes or updates can be submitted directly for this media. All changes are QA'ed by Mandriva. If you are a packager maintainer, to get a package to this media you must follow the Post-Release Support Policy.
[bearbeiten] /main/backports
- Description
- The /main/backports media contains packages of software that has been upgraded to new versions since the release of the distribution. Please see backport policy for details. Add this media if you wish to have access to newer versions of popular software after the release of the distribution, but be aware that these packages are not officially supported. This media can be made available on your system with the help of the Mirror Finder tool.
- Availability
- This media should be available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva. Maintainers may choose to update packages in this media to fix security issues or bugs, but are not obliged to.
- Maintainer
- This media is populated by Mandriva maintainers (employees and contributors) with no technical upload restriction. Major updates of significant components are discouraged. If unsure, please ask [email protected].
[bearbeiten] /non-free/release
- Description
- The /non-free/release media contains official packages that do not comply with the OSI definition of free and/or open source software. It usually contains proprietary drivers for certain hardware devices, applications or languages that are distributed with Mandriva Linux products. This media does not currently exist for any released product.
- Availability
- This media is available on most public Mandriva mirrors (currently for Cooker only).
- Support
- Packages from this media are supported by Mandriva (provided the updates packages from /non-free/updates are installed if available).
- Maintainer
- This media is controlled exclusively by the Mandriva Engineering Department. No changes or updates can be made to this media. All updates go in /non-free/updates.
[bearbeiten] /non-free/updates (also accessible as /MandrivaLinux/official/updates/2007.0/i586/media/non-free/updates)
- Description
- This media contains regular security and bug fix updates for 'non-free' packages. It should be available on your system automatically if you have run MandrivaUpdate or the rpmdrake "Add..." tool. All users should add this media.
- Availability
- This media is available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is controlled exclusively by the Mandriva Engineering Department. It is populated by the Maintenance and Security Team for the product. No changes or updates can be submitted directly for this media. All changes are QA'ed by Mandriva.
[bearbeiten] /contrib/release
- Description
- The /contrib/release media contain all the unsupported free / open source software packages initially released with the distribution. Add these media if you wish to access the full range of unsupported packages, beyond those on your installation disc(s). This media can be made available on your system with the help of the Mirror Finder tool or by using the rpmdrake media configuration tool to add "Distribution sources".
- Availability
- This media is available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is created from the Cooker project and totally frozen once the official product is released. No changes or updates can be made to this media. Packages from this media are usually built and tested in coordination with external contributors (individuals or organizations who want to add their software to the official repository). All bugfix and security updates go (preferably) first to /contrib/testing then to /contrib/updates, version upgrades go to /contrib/backports.
[bearbeiten] /contrib/testing
- Description
- This media serves the same purpose as the /main/testing media, except that it is for testing the new unsupported updates before they are validated by either contributors or engineers from Mandriva. It is not intended for testing packages destined to go into /contrib/backports.
- Availability
- This media should be available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is populated by external contributors in general, though some packages may be maintained by Mandriva staff. There is absolutely no warranty that packages in this media are validated. They can be changed at any time. This media only contains updates for packages from the /contrib/release media.
[bearbeiten] /contrib/updates (also accessible as /contrib/updates)
- Description
- This media contains regular security and bug fix updates for 'contrib' packages. It should be available on your system automatically if you have run MandrivaUpdate or the rpmdrake "Add..." tool. All users should add this media. All users who use /contrib packages should add this media. These updates are not tested, signed or supported by the Mandriva security team; they are built and issued by the maintainers of the 'contrib' packages. We do not guarantee that all maintainers will issue security or bugfix updates, but we provide this media for those maintainers who choose to do so.
- Availability
- This media is available on all public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- Maintainers who can upload to Cooker contrib can also upload to this media. Please use it to host security and bugfix updates for your packages, should you choose to provide them. It would be appreciated if you would upload candidate builds to /contrib/testing for testing by the community before moving them to this media. Please note that version upgrades and other updates not intended primarily to resolve security issues or bugs should be uploaded to /contrib/backports, not this media.
[bearbeiten] /contrib/backports
- Description
- The /contrib/backports media contains packages of software that has been upgraded to new versions since the release of the distribution. Please see backport policy for details.
- Availability
- This media should be available on most public Mandriva mirrors.
- Support
- Packages from this media are not supported by Mandriva.
- Maintainer
- This media is populated by Mandriva maintainers (employees and contributors) with no technical upload restriction.
[bearbeiten] /non-free-restricted, etc.
Note(dbarth): need to discuss if it is a 2007 item. Note(adamw): apparently not, at least yet.
[bearbeiten] Debug sections
For each section (currently main, contrib and non-free) there is a corresponding debug section - debug_main, debug_contrib and debug_non-free. These sections contain all the same repositories as their counterparts. They contain packages with the necessary files to allow full stack traces to be generated for debugging purposes. This information may be requested by the maintainer of a Mandriva package, or by an upstream development team, when trying to trace a bug in a package. The packages in the debug sections are never necessary for normal use or for compilation, and users should not need to use these sections unless instructed to by a maintainer or developer.
Technically speaking, this system is all automatically handled; the Mandriva buildsystem automatically strips debug symbols from affected files at the build stage, generates the -debug packages, and uploads them to the debug sections. Packagers do not need to do anything manually.
[bearbeiten] Mandriva Linux 2007 internal or private medias (used and accessible only by the Mandriva Engineering Team)
[bearbeiten] /non-free/testing, /non-free-restricted/testing
[bearbeiten] /non-free/backports, /non-free-restricted/backports
Note(dbarth): I think we should not have this one, and rather open contrib to new releases.
[bearbeiten] Differences with the old media
Before the 2007 release, a different set of media was used.
[bearbeiten] Mandriva Linux 2006 media
In summary the 2006 media were:
- /official/2006.0/{arch}/media/main : identical to /main/release
- /official/2006.0/{arch}/media/contrib : identical to /contrib/release
- /official/updates/{arch}/2006.0/RPMS : identical to /main/updates
- /devel/2006.0/{arch}/media/main : "Community" main, contains a full set of 'main' packages with all security updates mirrored from /official/updates/{arch}/2006.0/RPMS and can also have testing and backports-type packages uploaded directly by authorized maintainers. Not officially supported.
- /devel/2006.0/{arch}/media/contrib : "Community" contrib, contains a full set of contrib packages. Authorized maintainers can upload security, testing or backports-type packages directly. Not officially supported.
[bearbeiten] How to migrate from 2006 to 2007?
... or "which sources should I use now that I have installed my new shiny 2007?"
If you used the official media with 2006.0, the equivalent set of media for 2007.0 would be /main/release, /contrib/release, /main/updates and /contrib/updates. We would also recommend adding the /non-free/updates media.
If you used the community media with 2006.0, the equivalent set of media for 2007.0 would be /main/release, /contrib/release, /main/updates, /contrib/updates, /main/testing, /contrib/testing, /main/backports and /contrib/backports. We would also recommend adding the /non-free/updates media.
[bearbeiten] Backports policy
The packages from /backports media are provided as a service for users who want or need upgraded software. These packages should have been tested by the maintainer and by Cooker users and should be safe to use, but we still recommend against upgrading applications unless you are sure you want or need a feature of the new version.
Backports media generally contain packages of software that has been upgraded to new versions since the release of the distribution. It can also contain packages that were not present in the initial distribution release at all.
Typically, these media will contain updates of standalone programs (end-user applications, games, ...). Libraries should only be backported if they are required by backported standalone programs and if they are installable together with their initial version. Major updates of significant components (KDE, GNOME, kernel, glibc, ...) will not be available in these media.
[bearbeiten] See also
Additional resources about the medias:
- Policies/Mirror_Structure: describes the repository layout (for site or mirror admins)
- ...
