Welcome to the future of PostgreSQL

[Martin Pitt]

A big howdy to all database enthusiasts!

PostgreSQL 8.0 is out to the public for a few weeks now, and the
amount of emails asking "When can we get the debs?" is increasing
every day. In addition, the current structure and packaging of the
existing PostgreSQL 7.4 packages became too clumsy and inflexible to
be supported forever.

So some time ago, Oliver Elphick and I developed a completely new
architecture specification for PostgreSQL packages which allow to run
several major versions in parallel (which finally resolves the
upgrading hell) and to run arbitrarily many clusters (which makes the
package much more interesting for e. g. web hosters or safe
playgrounds).

The detailled architecture description can be found at

  http://people.debian.org/~mpitt/postgresql-ng.html

After some weeks of hacking and sleepless nights I am now proud to
present the first usable set of 7.4 and 8.0 packages for this new
structure:

postgresql-<version>: server binaries

postgresql-client-<version>: frontend programs

postgresql-common: cluster management and frontend wrapper

In addition, there are new packages "postgresql", "postgresql-client",
"postgresql-contrib", etc., which provide a smooth upgrade path: they
register the existing database from the current Hoary PostgreSQL
packages to the new multicluster structure, clean up old stuff and
immediately start the server again. Please note that this process will
install the 7.4 server/client. (Of course you can additionally install
the 8.0 server and client to play around with the new version).

There is still a lot of work to do, the biggest outstanding items are
a script to upgrade a cluster to a new version and documentation. But
I feel that the packages now are mature enough to be tested by a wider
audience, and also to attract more developers :) .

Take the plunge today and upgrade, test, and give feedback! i386 debs
for Hoary (and source packages) are just an apt-get away with

  deb     http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/psql  /
  deb-src http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/psql  /

If you just dist-upgrade with this repository, your hoary postgresql
package should automatically be upgraded to the new structure, your
existing database should be configured (check with pg_lsclusters), the
new cluster should run and psql etc. should behave as before. If you
install postgresql-7.4 or postgresql-8.0 from scratch (i. e. without
"postgresql" already installed), you should end up with a fully
functional and running "main" cluster.

If you are interested in development: the package is developed with
bazaar in the following repository:

  baz register-archive http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/arch/martin.pitt@canonical.com--2005

(This is a public mirror which is automatically updated every full
hour). The following projects are relevant for these PostgreSQL
packages:

  postgresql--ubuntu--7.4
  postgresql--ubuntu--8.0
  postgresql-common--ubuntu--1
  postgresql-transition--ubuntu--1

If you want to work on them, either just check them out and send me
patches, or do it the arch way and branch off to your own repository
and tell me where to merge from.

Happy testing and databasing!

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt                       http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer            http://www.ubuntulinux.org
Debian GNU/Linux Developer       http://www.debian.org
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