[mythtv-users] Upgrading from pre-0.22 MythTV versions

[Nick Rout]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 6:52 AM,  <f-myth-users at media.mit.edu> wrote:
>    > Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 09:09:09 -0500
>    > From: Kevin Kuphal <kkuphal at gmail.com>
>
>    > On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 8:50 PM, <f-myth-users at media.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>    > > I've been pondering this for a couple weeks, ever since I saw Mike's
>    > > commit of 2012-03-09T15:20:56-08:00 and his message re "Upgrad failing
>    > > from schema 1214 to 1265)" [sic].  This is a new thread 'cause I'm not
>    > > sure if very late replies to old threads typically get seen.  Sorry if
>    > > this is a bit long, but thanks for whatever you can clarify.
>    > >
>    > > I understand the problem with supporting old Myth versions if their
>    > > surroundings also change, but can you be a little clearer on a few
>    > > issues here?  And I'm hoping to perhaps change your mind, or at least
>    > > get workable ways forward---maybe support old versions until 0.25 is
>    > > released and -then- drop them, with more warning than the zero that
>    > > such users got before your commit?
>
>    > Cutting the below, can't you just upgrade to 0.23, 0.24, then 0.25 in order
>    > using the tarballs?  I've seen that before in plenty of commercial products
>    > and should work just fine here was well.
>
> My impressions of why this wouldn't be easy:
> (a) The tarballs are often not the latest release in any given major
>    version.  Is it now the case that there are up-to-date tarballs
>    for the latest of -fixes in "all" (for some definition of "all")
>    Myth versions?  If not, what's the right source?  git?  svn?
>    Does it vary based on the age of the release?
> (b) Building requires grabbing a lot of dependencies.  That's -way-
>    easier if you're starting with a package instead of a tarball,
>    so you can do "apt-get build-dep mythtv" or whatever and be sure
>    you actually have a consistent and compatible-with-itself set of
>    supporting packages.
> (c) Building old versions often winds up in dependency hell, so
>    you often need to install an OS of the right vintage as well.
>    Remember we're talking Qt versions, MySQL versions, maybe default
>    charset issues, I dunno.  And that's ignoring capture devices,
>    which I'm assuming one would -not- build except to get the backend
>    to start, but that then requires a working dummy tuner or something
>    else that most users never do, depending on how picky the backend
>    is about starting enough to even upgrade itself.
> (d) Many older distros either stop offering -everything-, or stop
>    updating packages.  This means that someone trying to actually
>    go the package route may wind up in trouble as well.
>
> I can easily see just one of these causing a lot of hairpulling,
> especially if done long after any given release/package/etc was
> current---in some distros, it might not even be -possible- to go
> back far enough.
>
> Are these concerns invalid?
>
> Here's another question:
>
> Let's just take Ubuntu, since that's what I'm running.  For either
> the Canonical-supplied packages or those from Mythbuntu, are those
> routinely rebuilt for (for example, just 'cause it's an LTS) 10.04
> against the -latest- -fixes?

For the canonical packages, they stay at the (ubuntu) release-date
version, as this search shows:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=mythtv-frontend&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all

For the mythbuntu repos you get updates. For example on 10.04, you can
get the latest 0.24-fixes as well as master (which they describe as
0.25, although it is not as 0.25 is not yet released)

from the repos FAQ:

How long will you keep doing builds for my version of Ubuntu?

    If your version of Ubuntu is an LTS release, you can expect to
have any MythTV version released up until the next Ubuntu LTS
available to you.
    If your version of Ubuntu is a standard release, you will have the
version of MythTV that was available in that release as well as one
more afterward.  So if the release launched with 0.23, you will have
0.23 and 0.24 available to you.