Re: [lmi] "buster" updates

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 7 Apr 2018 16:48:20 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:

GC> # apt-cache policy gcc-mingw-w64-i686
GC> gcc-mingw-w64-i686:
GC>   Installed: 7.3.0-12+20.2+b1
GC>   Candidate: 7.3.0-12+20.2+b1
GC>   Version table:
GC>  *** 7.3.0-12+20.2+b1 500
GC>         500 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 Packages
GC>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
GC> 
GC> I guess that answers the question I was going to answer next: whether
GC> the 'apt' system offers an easy way to revert to the old 7.2.0 if I
GC> need that. Apparently it doesn't.

 No, but you can use snapshot.debian.org to retrieve a previous version of
a package if you really need to, see e.g.

        http://snapshot.debian.org/binary/gcc-mingw-w64-i686/

GC> > In the past, I also used aptitude for
GC> > upgrades, as you had a nice option of pressing "v" when it asked you
GC> > whether you wanted to continue, which showed the versions of the old and
GC> > the (proposed) new packages, but these days using aptitude seems to be
GC> > frown upon, for whatever reason.
GC> 
GC> 'apt', 'apt-get', 'aptitude': I just use 'apt-get' normally because
GC> that seems to be the most popular.

 FWIW I think apt is the most popular one nowadays.

GC> > GC> But first, since I'm logged in as root, I thought I'd install a couple
GC> > GC> of shell-script checkers: 'shellcheck', which was easy to install and
GC> > GC> is useful...and 'checkbashisms', which is part of 'devscripts', which
GC> > GC> is large, but, again, what could possibly go wrong?
GC> > GC> 
GC> > GC> update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/frm.mailutils to provide 
/usr/bin/frm (frm) in auto moW: APT had planned for dpkg to do more than it 
reported back (934 vs 1051).
GC> [...]
GC> >  Interesting... which package does /usr/bin/frm come from? I don't see it
GC> > in the list of files of devscripts package at
GC> > 
GC> >   https://packages.debian.org/buster/i386/devscripts/filelist
GC> > 
GC> > and searching for it doesn't find anything neither:
GC> > 
GC> > 
https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=contents&keywords=/usr/bin/frm&mode=path&suite=testing&arch=any
GC> 
GC> # ls /usr/bin/frm*
GC> /usr/bin/frm  /usr/bin/frm.mailutils

 Thanks, I do indeed see this file in the list of package files at

        https://packages.debian.org/buster/amd64/mailutils/filelist

But the search above still doesn't find anything, neither with "frm" nor
with "frm.mailutils". I wonder if it's worth reporting a bug about this...

 Anyhow, the only important question here is whether we're going to update
the compiler used under Cygwin to 7.3 (the files for it are available at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win32/)
or downgrade the packages used for cross-compiling? We could also ignore
the difference between 7.2 and 7.3 as the only important one is that 7.3
supports "retpolines" that mitigate Spectre/Meltdown attacks on the code
compiled with it, but we don't really care about this with lmi. However it
would still arguably better, for our collective peace of mind, to use the
same compiler version everywhere.

 So should we update to 7.3 under native MSW too?

 Thanks,
VZ