Ubuntu
update-manager package

repository?

Asked by Jakub Dubovsky

Hi there,

I have searched the questions I hope I am not duplicating one.

There is no trouble. I am not looking for help. I just have one question and would like to hear some opinions...

Recently I have upgraded to 11.10. There are some pieces of software which were present in 11.04 repositories and I had them installed in 11.04 and which were subsequently removed from repositories for 11.10. As a result those packages were uninstalled from my computer during upgrade.

It is completely irrelevant here which particular software it was. I am just curious why this has happend. When I install an application I want to use it. When they (ubuntu or whoever) remove it from repositories that means there is some reason why they cannot support it any more and that's understantable. But that only means that there will be no more service (auto updates mainly). There is no reason to force me not to use it any more. Especially in case when I can download it from different place and install it again...

So my question is: is there some reason for this behaviour? Is there some technicality or something I am missing which forces this situation? Is there some reason why they cannot tell to the package manager "hei buddy, if you find some packages which are no longer supported during upgrade just let them be...". I appreciate the fact that the packages were listed during upgrade in packages-which-will-be-removed list. But what about packages-which-will-be-no-longer-supported-but-stay-instaled list?

Thank you for your clarifications of situation in advance :)

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Ubuntu update-manager Edit question
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Solved by:
Eliah Kagan
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Best Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#1

The issue is not that the software is no longer available from a repository (software source) that once provided it. If that were the case, for example if you got software from a PPA that shut down, then the considerations that would determine whether or not it was advisable to continue using the software would be specific to the application itself (for example, are there security vulnerabilities that updates are not being provided to address?).

The issue in an upgrade is that the software was *never* available for the newer release of the OS. In these cases, subtle problems could arise from using a package built (configured, compiled, linked) and packaged for an earlier release. For example, when a newer version of the compiler and linker are used, little incompatibilities (or occasionally big ones) are often introduced between code compiled with the older toolchain and code compiled with the newer toolchain.

You can grab the application's .deb package for your architecture on the old system and attempt to install it on the new system, which might succeed. And it might work. But it might also fail is bizarre and confusing ways, which might be difficult or impossible to troubleshoot without knowing that you were using a package intended for a different release. The possibility of such failure should only be a risk to users who explicitly choose to take it on.

If you have specific applications that were removed in this way when you upgraded, you may want to post a question about them (or post here about them), to solicit advice about the various options you have for continuing to use that software.

Revision history for this message
Jakub Dubovsky (james64) said : 		#2

I think I understand now that I cannot "let the package be" during upgrade generally for all packages. I have no problems using the software. I have installed it once again by .sh script from producer of it. As I said I was just courious why it behaves so...

Thank you very much for the answer. I am finding this launchpad questions place very useful :)

...and it was netbeans by the way...

Revision history for this message
Jakub Dubovsky (james64) said : 		#3

Thanks Eliah Kagan, that solved my question.