Re: How long are old pkgsrc releases supported?

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Frank Wille <frank%phoenix.owl.de@localhost> writes:

>> In this case, I would expect you have a staging/test/etc sever with the
>> same OS and similar hardware,
>
> No I have not. How similar would the hardware have to be? CPU architecture
> is enough? Probably depends on the applications needed?
> Otherwise it is hard to argue for me that I have to buy the same server
> again just to be able to update the first one.

Probably just same CPU.

>> and that you could check out pkgsrc-2018Q2
>> from cvs and build the binary package you need. 
>
> But that's what I did. It no longer works, when the source archives
> disappear.

The bits are in cvs.

> Same pkgsrc-branch means 2018Q2 in this case? Then it doesn't help me,
> because some packages in this branch do not build any longer.

This is the basic issue; old software is old.


> For me it looks like I have to switch to a recent pkgsrc to be able to
> make print/tex-tetex and rebuild everything. This will also force me to
> upgrade many of my current packages to newer versions (especially php,
> python, mysql, apache might be important) causing lots of trouble. :(

You can also bootstrap a second pkgsrc tree, sort of /usr/pkg2020Q1, and
build tex there.

Yes, the basic issue is the churn in the upstream world.  It only seems
like a pkgsrc problem because that's in between you and upstream.