Q6.1.2 coming soon

I almost released Quirky 6.1.2 yesterday, but had to hold-off due to a bug. Fixed now, and 6.1.2 will be uploaded soon.

There are quite a lot of fixes relative to 6.1.1, and upgrading is essential.

The latest fix, that delayed the launch, is due to package post-install scripts that may arbitrarily delete any file or directory.

Quirky is supposed to be able to recover gracefully if any package is uninstalled, and will reinstate any earlier files/dirs. For example, a package installs /usr/X11R7/bin/Xorg. But of course there would have already been an Xorg, that gets overwritten -- but Quirky keeps the old file in the /audit/<pkgname>DEPOSED.sfs archive file. So, if package gets uninstalled, the earlier Xorg will be reinstated.

That is fine, it works. However, if a rogue post-install script deletes a file, the file was not getting saved anywhere, so it is gone. If the package was uninstalled, that file never came back.

I figured out a solution, implemented in /usr/local/petget/installpkg.sh, and a new script 'rm.sh'. When 'installpkg.sh' executes a package post-install script (pinstall.sh for PETs), it does so with a "alias rm=/usr/local/petget/rm.sh", so all "rm" operations go to 'rm.sh' -- which takes care of saving the old file/dir in the *DEPOSED.sfs, and also reinstates an older file if it exists.

I encountered this problem when I installed the devx_service_pack-6.1_TO_6.1.2-quirky6.pet, which has, amongst other things, "rm -f /usr/bin/gettext" in its pinstall.sh. The reason for this, is that the 'gettext' package got moved out of the 'devx' into the main Quirky build. But, deleting 'gettext' upset things very much!

Anyway, my fix seems to be working nicely.

More fixes
I have posted about some of them in the Forum.

There was a serious bug in the system snapshot mechanism, now fixed, but you might need to delete any snapshots in /audit/snapshots and start again. Trying to recover from a broken snapshot will just wreak the installation.

Not a bug, a new feature, 'devx' is now a Service Pack. They are in the repo, named:
devx_service_pack-<old version>_TO_<new version>-quirky6.pet

....their introduction did, however, expose new bugs, which have been fixed.

You do of course need to have a base 'devx-<version>-quirky6.pet' installed, before a Service Pack can be installed -- hmmm, I don't recall if the script does that check. The Upgrade Manager will check for a devx Service Pack, and there is a new script /usr/local/petget/devx-service-pack.sh.

Here is where I posted about 6.1.2 fixes:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90784&start=240

Tags: linux