"No Release file" from do-release-upgrade with an aptly repo

[Liam Proven]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2022 at 01:26, Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I am not exactly talking about rebuilding the kernel, X, or glibc.

It doesn't really matter what you are rebuilding, AFAICS.
>
> Suppose that something this PDF viewer's Ubuntu package is not how you want
> it to be, the point is that you have the power to change it.

There are distros where this kind of thing is a goal.  Ubuntu isn't
really one of them.

> That's what
> free software is all about, after all.

I would have to say that's a stretch, TBH. All I am saying, and I
really don't get why you seem to be so resistant to it, is that there
are other distros which will probably make this easier for you, and if
this is your goal, maybe this isn't the distro for you.

I am reminded of a chap some 15Y ago that felt that it was
inconceivable that Ubuntu didn't include Emacs by default.

> So why shouldn't you be able to build
> this PDF viewer yourself, be able to update it seamlessly, and also have it
> updated as part of upgrading from one release to another? I see nothing
> wrong with that.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with it.

I am saying that this is not the sort of Linux distro that really
encourages that sort of thing. I don't get why you seem to feel like
that is an attack on your choices. It isn't.

> If someone has the skills to handle the rebuilding by themselves, why put up
> roadblocks to integrating their own builds into the distribution?

What you perceive as roadblocks are merely reflections that what you
want to do is not the sort of thing that Ubuntu was aimed at.

Ubuntu was aimed at being a very easy OS for non-technical people that
could replace Windows.

Nowadays Mint is a better Windows replacement than Ubuntu, and
ChromeOS is arguably even easier than Mint: it's an iPad replacement.

FWIW, ChromeOS was built on Gentoo.

> Well, if it's easy for non-technical people, then I would expect it to be
> easy to use for technical people too.

Not really, no. In fact I'd say the reverse of that was true.

> I see just as many, if not more, Ubuntu than Debian repositories.

What does that have to do with anything? Really? I fail to see any connection.

> > But if I understand you correctly, you haven't set up a repo at all, I think.
>
> No, I did set up a repo.

[...]

AFAICS  from this thread, the release-upgrade tool considers a repo to
be an Internet site, and you didn't create one of those. I have
offered you an easy hosted alternative but you reject it, preferring
to argue about what defines a repo.

I don't understand. Why choose a tool which actively fights against
what you want to do?

Wouldn't it be better to choose tools that help you, that work the way
you want to work?

When you hit a problem, why do you choose to argue about definitions
rather than look for the causes of the problem?

> The well-publicized Firefox issue in 22 highlights, quite effectively, the
> technical disadvantages of going in that direction.

Which issue do you mean?

It looks to me like the writing is on the wall. PPAs are going away.
Private repos are going away.

Ubuntu Core doesn't even have a package manager. Neither does, say,
Fedora Silverblue, or Fedora Kinoite. SUSE MicroOS does but the root
filesystem is read-only, and you can only install packages during a
reboot.

Package managers are going away. The future, rightly or wrongly, is
immutable root filesystems, signed binaries, and containerised apps.

If that is not what you want, then you have 2 choices:

[1] Work with the distro and do things the distro's preferred way
[2] Switch distros to something that accommodates how you want to work.

You have chosen path 3: picked a distro which fights you and which in
successive releases will fight harder and harder.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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