Porteus

Hello,

I began to test Porteus with Porteus-v2.1-RC1 and now moved to the final version of Porteus-v2.1 (skipping RC2).
Then I compared the list of installed packages as produced by "slackyd -l" between those two versions and noticed, that a lot of packages now are pulled from a repository ending with "Ahau"; e. g. "xfce4-panel-4.10.1-i486-1" was replaced by "xfce4-panel-4.10.1-i486-1Ahau" and so on. In most cases only the ending changed and not the version of the package itself.
- So my first question is: what's the reason for this change? Do the packages differ in any way or are they the same?
- Second question: where can I find these packages and this repository online? (I ask this because I always want to keep my system up-to-date, and this is not easy in Slackware-based distributions, especially not in Porteus where the advantage to have several repos at your hands leads to the fact, that you have to look at more places to check, whether there are new versions of your installed packages.)
- Third question relates to those above: another frequently used repo is "...-1ftm" => where can I find this online?
- Fourth question (relating to question 1 and 3): A security upgrade was announced for "poppler". Installed version is "poppler-0.20.2-i486-1ftm". Online I found the upgrade-version "poppler-0.20.2-i486-2_slack14.0.txz" => can I use this to upgrade the module 002-xorg.xzm which contains "poppler", or do I have to search/wait for something like "poppler-0.20.2-i486-2ftm"?

Best regards
Hansi

hi Hansi,

what's the reason for this change?

if package is ending with -1Ahau or -2ftm or -3jay then it means it was compiled/recompiled locally on porteus. we do this for 3 reasons:
- to change configuration switches (mostly to get rid of unwanted functionality/deps)
- to compile package with different gcc flags (ie: using '-Os' for obtaining smaller binary size/memory footprint)
- to recompile package against libraries used in porteus which sometimes are never than in stable slackware releases (Mate has never gtk if i'm not mistaken)
if package name is ending with -1 or -2sl or 3ponce then it comes from slackware/slacly/ponce online repos respectively.

where can I find these packages and this repository online?

these packages are compiled specifically for porteus and does not exist in any online repo. their main purpose is to be included in the ISO. some are pushed as modules on our server so can be shared among different porteus desktops, example: testdisk-6.14-x86_64-1ftm.xzm (which had to be recompiled against never ntfs3g library: http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2389)

Online I found the upgrade-version "poppler-0.20.2-i486-2_slack14.0.txz" => can I use this to upgrade the module 002-xorg.xzm which contains "poppler", or do I have to search/wait for something like "poppler-0.20.2-i486-2ftm"?

yes - it should be ok to upgrade poppler or any other package coming from slackware security updates. i would be careful with upgrading packages ending with Ahau/ftm/jay as slackware/3rd_party equivalents may be compiled with different switches, linked against different libs, etc (as explained above).

.xzm ending by Ahau means that ahau is the one who made the built for the package. When there is ftm at the end, it means that fanthom built it. If you find fl at the end it will be me (there is very, very few of them). The ftm and ahau packages should be available thru PPM (porteus package manager) once they have been accepted by the administrator. You can have direct access to the repo:
http://www.ponce.cc/porteus/x86_64/modules/


For 32bit architecture, change x86_64 for i486 in the above url

but it is better to work with PPM as advised on the site.

@francois
this is the old repo for porteus-1.x line and modules from it should not be used with porteus-2.x (may destroy whole system). porteus-2.x repo is hidden as we want to force users to use PPM to avoid complains about not resolved deps.

Sorry for this one, I will take this one into account.

hz = me.

Hi fanthom, francois and Hamza,

sorry for my late reply and thank you for your answers so far!
And thank you for your work for Porteus, which I appreciate very much!

In your first reply, fanthom, from 28-Aug., 17:51, I see a contradiction regarding the poppler-module:
You write that it should be OK to upgrade poppler from slackware security updates, although the installed version is one of your specially compiled ones: "poppler...-1ftm". And in the following sentence you warn us to upgrade packages ending with Ahau/ftm/jay!
Which is right then in this case?

As I mentioned before, I like to have my systems up-to-date, but neither PPM nor the "Porteus Updater" (on the home screen of the "Porteus Settings Centre") tell me that my active version of poppler is outdated and should be replaced by a security patch. I have no problem in making me some scripts to download the changelogs of Slackware, Salix, Alien and the other possible repositories to check wether I have to upgrade my modules with newer packages, but I need to have access to that new packages - even if they are not from the "standard repos"!
=> Would it be possible for you - if it is too much work to publish new versions of the affected Porteus-xzm-modules - at least to compile that packages that are included in the Porteus-modules which are "special versions" of you, in the case they are affected by security fixes and make them available for everyone who wants to "upgradepkg" his modules? (BTW: where is that "official repo" mentioned in http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2389 ?)

Many thanks in advance
Hansi

I didn't see a contradiction. Just a warning to take care when updating custom packages as the custom packages may have been compiled against different libraries, or with a non default config. As stated, you should have no problem updating poppler to the security release version. Go ahead.

In your first reply, fanthom, from 28-Aug., 17:51, I see a contradiction regarding the poppler-module:
You write that it should be OK to upgrade poppler from slackware security updates, although the installed version is one of your specially compiled ones: "poppler...-1ftm". And in the following sentence you warn us to upgrade packages ending with Ahau/ftm/jay!
Which is right then in this case?

that's why i wrote "it should be ok".
i can't guarantee that upgrade to our custom compiled module wont break something as it depends on what has been changed. in case of popler it's unresolved dep: but could be something more serious. ofc - you wont be able to find what has been changed till we publish our custom slackbuilds. nobody asked for them so we did not do it yet.

Would it be possible for you - if it is too much work to publish new versions of the affected Porteus-xzm-modules - at least to compile that packages that are included in the Porteus-modules which are "special vers(BTW: where is that "official repo" mentioned in viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2389 ?)ions" of you, in the case they are affected by security fixes and make them available for everyone who wants to "upgradepkg" his modules? (

no plans for that as we have limited resources. as per above - we could publish slackbuilds so interested users could perform recompilations themselves (warning: my slackbuilds are messy).

(BTW: where is that "official repo" mentioned in viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2389 ?)

please open PPM and click on Porteus icon.