Slackware-current ChangeLog (2018-06-19)

Tue Jun 19 22:35:25 UTC 2018

  • testing/packages/pkgtools-15.0-noarch-20.txz
    This update is a bit scarier than usual, so we're going to test it here
    first and then move it into the main tree in a couple of days if there
    are no serious bug reports. It's well-tested here, and works with the
    slackpkg that's in -current now, but I don't know about slackpkg+ so that's
    another reason to let it cool down here first. The purpose of this update
    is to migrate the package database and directories from /var/log to
    /var/lib/pkgtools. /var/log was never a good place for this data, as it is
    considered by many to be a directory that could be wiped to free up some
    space. Originally the package database was in /var/adm, but the FSSTND
    (later FHS) group decided that directory should be a symlink to /var/log,
    and I went along with that since it was years ago and I was a n00b and didn't
    know any better. /var/lib/pkgtools will be a better and safer location.
    The removed_packages and removed_scripts directories are really just logs
    that aren't actually used for anything - those will remain under /var/log,
    but moved into /var/log/pkgtools. Everything under /var/log will be
    considered potentially non-permanent by the pkgtools - if any directories or
    symlinks disappear from there, the pkgtools will automatically recreate them
    as needed. In fact, the migration process will create symlinks from all the
    old directory locations to the new ones, so anything that expects the old
    locations (including slackpkg, for now) should continue to work. Once this
    moves into the main tree, the plan is to fix other packages to use the new
    installer script directory (/var/lib/pkgtools/setup) and change the installer
    and slackpkg to use the new native locations for everything. When slackpkg
    is changed over to use the new native locations, I'll also make sure to float
    that in testing/ for a few days before moving it to the main tree to avoid
    more unintentional disruption to slackpkg+ users.
    Be aware that the package database migration is a one-way operation, but even
    so if you later downgrade to an older version of the pkgtools it will still
    work through the compatibility symlinks.

Tue Jun 19 05:47:22 UTC 2018

  • news/2018/06/19/slackware-current-changelog.txt
  • Last modified: 6 years ago
  • by Giuseppe Di Terlizzi