[mythtv-users] The "right" way for non-dev users to test 0.22 RC1?

[Robert McNamara]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Bob Cunningham <FlyMyPG at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My goal is to stay off the dev list, and test 0.22 RC1 as if it were truly a
> "Release Candidate", and not as an SVN drop that escaped from the lab before
> it was ready.

The fundamental issue to keep in mind here is that MythTV as a project
neither provides, builds, nor provides support for packages.  We
provide a product as source, and it's up to the user to be able to
build from that source, or for the user's packager to provide
something more friendly.  Whether that's the way it should be is open
for debate, but that's the way it is as of now.

>
> My next step was to find instructions for the 0.22 RC1 install.  I first
> checked the wiki (http://www.mythtv.org/), but I failed to find the 0.22 RC1
> installation docs there: If you want "regular" and "newbie" users to help
> with RC1 testing, the RC1 docs must be located where Google can find them!
>

The instructions are in the source, which comes with the most current
copy of the documentation.  When .22 is released, the web site
documentation (which is very visible at http://www.mythtv.org/docs/)
will be updated to match the current release.  The web docs currently
match the current release, which is .21.

> My googling did reveal that the Fedora RPMs were in
> rpmfusion-updates-testing.  I immediately went looking for mythtv-suite, but
> found that package was not in the repository!  More googling took me to the
> MythTV Trac page, where I learned that the "mythtv" package had been
> repurposed to replace mythtv-suite.
>

As above, we don't provide packages.  There's nothing stopping someone
from putting distro specific information on the wiki, it's a wiki.
But we provide source, and that source comes with current docs.

> Come on, something that fundamental should not have required Google to find.
>  I would have expected a change to the FIRST STEP of installation to be
> somewhere on the wiki in large, bold print.
>

The installation process for installing Myth from source hasn't
changed, aside from a change in the Qt version, and that is reflected
in the docs in the source.  Issues in changing packaging should be
taken up with the packagers.

> With no other directions in-hand, I decided to blindly install the 0.22 RC1
> RPMs from rpmfusion-updates-testing using "yum install mythtv".
>  Fortunately, THAT finally provided me with a copy of the 0.22 RC1 docs.
>
> Again, those docs, or pointers to them, really need to be on the MythTV
> wiki.  But I may have said that already.
>

They're more than in the wiki-- they're on the main site.  As I
mentioned above, when .22 is released, the web docs will reflect that
version.


> I'm at the end of Section 3, and am running "yum-builddeps mythtv" now.
>  I've never used this command before, and was surprised that "yum install
> mythtv" didn't catch all the dependencies.
>

You should speak to your packager about this, as the above command
installs build dependencies, not runtime ones.

> Again, my goal is to stay off the dev list.  If 0.22 RC1 cannot be installed
> and run without dev support, should I give up and wait for RC2?

The RC is still development software.  If you're not OK with
potentially needing developer support to run development software,
then waiting may be your best bet.  The RC presupposes that one is
able to build and install it themselves using the docs provided in the
source.  If your packager provides the development software, then
support for installation of those packages is provided by them.

Robert