Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

johnraff · 2024-05-18 04:38:41

It's time to migrate BL packages to Carbon/Trixie and I noticed that our server is still hosting packages for BunsenLabs Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium, along with Beryllium and Boron.

Considering we no longer provide isos for releases before Beryllium, is it time to drop the early packages too, and save some server space?

Restoring eg Helium after removing it would be a pita so let's not act hastily...

unklar · 2024-05-18 14:33:16

@johnraff, I support your thoughts and would like to encourage you to do so in the interest of BL. It will certainly be good for server support.

hhh · 2024-05-18 14:47:37

You can still install those releases by installing the corresponding Debian netinstall and then install bunsen-meta-all or bunsen-* (or run the netinstall script?) Debian Buster has Long Term Support until June 30th of this year...

https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/

So I think we can safely drop our packages after that. If anyone wants to run old Debian with Extended Long Term support, they can download pure Debian and adapt our scripts from our GitHub, don't you think? Our Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium branches are still there.

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/

https://github.com/BunsenLabs
https://github.com/BunsenLabs/bunsen-co … e/hydrogen

PackRat · 2024-05-18 15:20:01

hhh wrote:

You can still install those releases by installing the corresponding Debian netinstall and then install bunsen-meta-all or bunsen-* (or run the netinstall script?) Debian Buster has Long Term Support until June 30th of this year...
https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/
So I think we can safely drop our packages after that. If anyone wants to run old Debian with Extended Long Term support, they can download pure Debian and adapt our scripts from our GitHub, don't you think? Our Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium branches are still there.
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/
https://github.com/BunsenLabs
https://github.com/BunsenLabs/bunsen-co … e/hydrogen

+1

Sector11 · 2024-05-18 16:09:14

Good to have github. Save server space.

johnraff · 2024-05-19 02:34:15

The source code of the old releases can remain on Github no problem at all.

Our server is getting a bit full, so I'd like to scrape out some disk space if possible. (It wouldn't be all that much though - maybe a GB or so.)

OK considering Lithium's Debian base (Buster) is still being supported, at least till July 2024, then for now let's just remove the Hydrogen and Helium packages. I don't think there's any realistic use case for them, and as @hhh said, anyone desperate for a Helium system can grab the source code. None of our packages are difficult to build from source.

johnraff · 2024-05-19 05:25:52

Announcement: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=8982

johnraff · 2024-05-23 05:21:07

Removed all but Lithium, Beryllium and Boron, and their backports.

And Lithium can go later this year, once Debian have dropped Buster support.

Last edited by johnraff (2024-05-23 05:23:51)

jimjamz · 2024-05-23 11:55:24

Although it's not my decision to make, I wouldn't feel too bad about dropping Lithium support if you have to John, as soon as July 2024 arrives. I'd be willing to bet I was one of the very last people running Lithium as a daily (and Hydrogen on an eee-pc) up until the end of last year. Those insisting on still running them are contrarian to security and support provided to them (for free) by later releases.

johnraff · 2024-05-24 02:35:01

We try to support older systems as long as it's reasonable, but once Debian drop support then there's not much we can do in a project of this size.

(Unfortunately the same will probably apply to i386 installers from Trixie on.)

jimjamz · 2024-05-27 12:25:19

As an additional suggestion, perhaps it would be useful to upload any historical distribution releases to archive.org? This would save John the disk space of hosting previous ISOs, while still allowing those who wish to experiment with older releases without having to download the packages on top of a netinst variant of Debian.

Bearded_Blunder · 2024-05-27 17:37:50

Just as well I upgraded the system I had still running Helium today.
It's now on Boron.

No idea if I followed the best process or not, but everything seems to be working.
I'll post back with more detail if anyone is interested, though it basically amounted to following Debian's upgrade process one release at a time. Was pretty fugly with partially broken menus (having removed the bunsen packages) in the interim, once I got that on stable, I then simply added the Bunsen repos back, installed the keyring & bunsen-meta-all. Which then resolved those issues once I'd rebooted, answered the quiz about config files, & rebooted again.

Sorry to have been gone so long, family with health issues & hardware issues.
I've missed the board, hopefully I'll be around a bit again since things have settled back into a more "normal" (if there is such a thing) routine.

altman · 2024-05-27 19:19:11

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Just as well I upgraded the system I had still running Helium today.
It's now on Boron.
No idea if I followed the best process or not, but everything seems to be working.
I'll post back with more detail if anyone is interested, though it basically amounted to following Debian's upgrade process one release at a time. Was pretty fugly with partially broken menus (having removed the bunsen packages) in the interim, once I got that on stable, I then simply added the Bunsen repos back, installed the keyring & bunsen-meta-all. Which then resolved those issues once I'd rebooted, answered the quiz about config files, & rebooted again.
Sorry to have been gone so long, family with health issues & hardware issues.
I've missed the board, hopefully I'll be around a bit again since things have settled back into a more "normal" (if there is such a thing) routine.

Take care bud, hope that it will get better soon on your end .

Bearded_Blunder · 2024-05-27 21:16:58

jimjamz wrote:

As an additional suggestion, perhaps it would be useful to upload any historical distribution releases to archive.org? This would save John the disk space of hosting previous ISOs, while still allowing those who wish to experiment with older releases without having to download the packages on top of a netinst variant of Debian.

If that's feasible, I'd be in favour.

Debian archive past releases, even after dropping support, I did find that useful once resurrecting an old system, some years ago now. I quite literally pointed the sources.list at the archived repos & upgraded through at least one out of support version till it was on a supported one. An old P3 Laptop that has long since died, I think it was still on Etch when I dusted it off.

Were money & space no object I'd encourage keeping the repos available, even on a different domain, but I do understand the space & cost constraints, & frankly while it's nice & sometimes useful to be able to access out of support versions, it should require a little hoop jumping, just to discourage people keeping insecure systems online.

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2024-05-27 21:17:30)

altman · 2024-05-27 21:42:17

jimjamz wrote:

As an additional suggestion, perhaps it would be useful to upload any historical distribution releases to archive.org? This would save John the disk space of hosting previous ISOs, while still allowing those who wish to experiment with older releases without having to download the packages on top of a netinst variant of Debian.

That s a good idea @jimjamz.

johnraff · 2024-05-28 06:21:30

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

jimjamz wrote:
perhaps it would be useful to upload any historical distribution releases to archive.org? This would save John the disk space of hosting previous ISOs, while still allowing those who wish to experiment with older releases without having to download the packages on top of a netinst variant of Debian.
If that's feasible, I'd be in favour.
Debian archive past releases, even after dropping support, I did find that useful once resurrecting an old system, some years ago now. I quite literally pointed the sources.list at the archived repos & upgraded through at least one out of support version till it was on a supported one. An old P3 Laptop that has long since died, I think it was still on Etch when I dusted it off.
Were money & space no object I'd encourage keeping the repos available, even on a different domain, but I do understand the space & cost constraints, & frankly while it's nice & sometimes useful to be able to access out of support versions, it should require a little hoop jumping, just to discourage people keeping insecure systems online.

Welcome back B_B! Good to hear things are improving for you.

It would be quite easy to upload the obsolete iso files to archive.org, but once downloaded and booted they would have no working package repos to connect to, either Debian or BL, at least without editing apt sources, and would be far too insecure to use as-is. If it's a question of upgrading the system, then as B_B did it, one release at a time would be the way. The only BL packages I could see breaking on upgrade might be the GTK themes, so switching to a more vanilla theme, then just commenting out the BL repos during the upgrade(s) might work. But I don't really see the point to be honest.

OTOH hosting the obsolete package repositories somewhere would be much more complicated than uploading a file. Sorry, but I don't really see any realistic return on the investment in effort that would mean. Machines can be upgraded on Debian alone and the BL packages added back afterwards as B_B did.

The old isos issue came up a while ago just after I removed Hydrogen and Helium isos from the server.

altman · 2024-05-28 22:10:30

Anyways you re the boss, & we will go on with your decision. Do what s good for the distro.

johnraff · 2024-05-29 01:33:22

^Everyone here does what they can, the best they can. Important decisions are made by the whole dev team and if someone disagrees strongly on a point we try to get a consensus before moving on. BL is a community continuation of #! (it says somewhere).

So each of us is free to work on what we find interesting and worthwhile. If I don't feel like putting in the effort to maintain package repositories for obsolete releases, that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't be free to take it on if they wanted to.

The same for everything else - as long as other members don't see a major problem for the project in what someone plans to do.

So I'm "the boss" wrt the repositories simply because I'm doing the work atm. Very happy to share the meagre knowlege I have.

* Note, though that things like direct access to the BL server also involve a lot of trust...

altman · 2024-05-29 11:37:19

Glad to have BL around, keep it on in there Team.

#1 2024-05-18 04:38:41

Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#2 2024-05-18 14:33:16

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#3 2024-05-18 14:47:37

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#4 2024-05-18 15:20:01

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#5 2024-05-18 16:09:14

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#6 2024-05-19 02:34:15

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#7 2024-05-19 05:25:52

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#8 2024-05-23 05:21:07

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#9 2024-05-23 11:55:24

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#10 2024-05-24 02:35:01

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#11 2024-05-27 12:25:19

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#12 2024-05-27 17:37:50

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#13 2024-05-27 19:19:11

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#14 2024-05-27 21:16:58

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#15 2024-05-27 21:42:17

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#16 2024-05-28 06:21:30

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#17 2024-05-28 22:10:30

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#18 2024-05-29 01:33:22

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

#19 2024-05-29 11:37:19

Re: Drop Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium from the package repositories?

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