Please keep F20 up-to-date (if you can't hold release dates)

[Gerhard Hueller]

Hello,

A few days ago, Mesa-10.3 has been released, while Mesa 10.2 now marks the
"stable" version.
The version which currently ships as part of Fedora-20 is 10.1, which receuived its last
update in June.

Guys, if you can't hold release dates, please keep at least the current distribution
up-to-date.
It is done with the kernel, so why aren't other critical parts of the system handled
in a rolling-release like way?

Greetings, Gerhard

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 10/01/2014 11:47 AM, Gerhard Hueller wrote:
>  Hello,
>
>  A few days ago, Mesa-10.3 has been released, while Mesa 10.2 now marks
>  the "stable" version.
>  The version which currently ships as part of Fedora-20 is 10.1, which
>  receuived its last update in June.
>
>  Guys, if you can't hold release dates, please keep at least the current
>  distribution up-to-date.
>  It is done with the kernel, so why aren't other critical parts of the
>  system handled in a rolling-release like way? 
Fedora doesn't apply are rolling
release model. It applies an 
API/ABI-stable within one release model.

In general, this means, packages can only be upgraded if they do not 
break these packages' API/ABI.

Ralf

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 11:47:15AM +0200, Gerhard Hueller wrote:
>  Guys, if you can't hold release dates, please keep at least the
> current
>  distribution up-to-date. It is done with the kernel, so why aren't other
>  critical parts of the system handled in a rolling-release like way? 
The idea of "not holding release dates" is a misconception about how our
scheduling process works. Release dates are meant to be targets, not
deadlines, and our process is based on fulfilling release criteria, not what
the clock says.

Within a stable release, we try to minimize disruption as a matter of
policy. This is always a balancing act: everyone wants the newest cake, and
wants stability to eat too.

If you are very eager for the latest — and it sounds like you are! — I
encourage you to try the alpha release, or even run Rawhide, as I do.

Or, if Mesa is your primary concern, you might also contact Felix Schwarz
about making a Mesa 10.3 Copr, as he did with 10.1 previously before that
hit the distribution — take a look at
<https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/fschwarz/mesa10/>;.

In general, Coprs are a better approach than disruptive distro updates,
because it lets people who want the new shiny to assume the risk — *and*, to
only take that risk in the areas they care about, rather than the "all in!"
approach of Rawhide.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Gerhard Hueller]

Hi,

>  Fedora doesn't apply are rolling release model. 
>  It applies an API/ABI-stable within one release model. 
>  In general, this means, packages can only be upgraded 
>  if they do not break these packages' API/ABI. 
Because Mesa has already been updated twice after the F20 release (9.2 -> 10.0 ->
10.1), I don't suppose updating to 10.2 or should cause a lot of issues.
Furthermore, as the only external mesa interface is OpenGL which is required to be stable
anyway, there is no big risk involved.
All the internal interfaces (xorg, drm, ...) can be taken care by the distribution.

>  If you are very eager for the latest — and it sounds like you are! —
> I
>  encourage you to try the alpha release, or even run Rawhide, as I do. 

I did that, but rawhide is built with debug compiler options and therefore notably slower
(at least phoronix benchmarks  say so) - and it usually breaks quite regulary.

>  Or, if Mesa is your primary concern, you might also contact Felix
> Schwarz
>  about making a Mesa 10.3 Copr, as he did with 10.1 previously before that
>  hit the distribution — take a look at
>  <https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/fschwarz/mesa10/>;. 
I used that 10.1 repository before 10.1 was pushed to F20, it would be great if it would
exist for 10.3 too.
I'll ask Felix, hopefully I'll be able to motivate him ;)

- Gerhard

[Clemens Eisserer]

Hi,

>  Or, if Mesa is your primary concern, you might also contact Felix
> Schwarz
>  > about making a Mesa 10.3 Copr, as he did with 10.1 previously before that
>  > hit the distribution — take a look at
>  > <https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/fschwarz/mesa10/>;.
>
>  I used that 10.1 repository before 10.1 was pushed to F20, it would be
>  great if it would exist for 10.3 too.
>  I'll ask Felix, hopefully I'll be able to motivate him ;)
>  
I second the wish for a mesa-10.3 repository.
Mesa-10.1 is really old these days, and Fedora-21 is still another 3 months
away.

With mesa being a core component of every desktop machine now, I hope it
will receive more attention in the future - compareable to the linux
kernel. The linux kernel is also regularily updated, even after a Fedora
version is released as stable.

Best regards, Clemens

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2014 at 04:51:50PM +0200, Gerhard Hueller wrote:
>  > If you are very eager for the latest — and it sounds like you
> are! — I
>  > encourage you to try the alpha release, or even run Rawhide, as I do.
>  I did that, but rawhide is built with debug compiler options and therefore
>  notably slower (at least phoronix benchmarks say so) - and it usually
>  breaks quite regulary. 
Not all of Rawhide is built that way. The primary place where it matters is
the kernel. If you add the nodebug kernel repository from

  <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RawhideKernelNodebug>;, 

you can get kernels without that.


And it breaks less frequently than it used to. :)

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Heinz Diehl]

On 01.10.2014, Gerhard Hueller wrote: 

>  I did that, but rawhide is built with 
>  debug compiler options and therefore notably slower 
While I'm not convinced that there is any significantly slowdown in
real use caused by DEBUG, you can do it the easy way: take a look at
koji.fedoraproject.org, take one of the most actual mesa versions, and
recompile it. E.g. this one compiles fine on F19, so it should do the
same on F20: mesa-10.3-1.20140927.fc21.src.rpm.

[Gerhard Hueller]

Hi Heinz,

>  While I'm not convinced that there is any significantly slowdown
> in
>  real use caused by DEBUG 
It is at least with the kernel, as there are some lock-diagnostics turned on, which cause
a servre slowdown.
Also, I used rawhide a few months and went away after it broke a few times.

>  you can do it the easy way: take a look at
>  koji.fedoraproject.org, take one of the most actual mesa versions, and
>  recompile it. E.g. this one compiles fine on F19, so it should do the
>  same on F20: mesa-10.3-1.20140927.fc21.src.rpm. 
Not practical:

[gh@pc22 ~]$ rpm -qa | grep -i "mesa"
mesa-libEGL-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-dri-drivers-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libglapi-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libGLU-9.0.0-5.fc20.i686
mesa-libxatracker-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libGLU-9.0.0-5.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libglapi-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-libGLU-devel-9.0.0-5.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libGL-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-libgbm-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-filesystem-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-dri-drivers-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-libGL-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libgbm-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libGL-devel-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64
mesa-libEGL-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.i686
mesa-filesystem-10.1.5-1.20140607.fc20.x86_64

- Gh