[Neurodebian-users] Removal of Ubuntu gutsy and dapper from the NeuroDebian repository

[Michael Hanke]

Hey,

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 12:31:00PM -0800, Paul Ivanov wrote:
> Dapper was an LTS, and it looks like archive.ubuntu.com is still
> hosting the packages for it. I imagine people still using it
> won't be so quick to respond in a manner of days, since they're
> using an OS that was released over 4 years ago... At the same
> time, it's not clear that they'd be using NeuroDebian without
> being somewhat on the up-and-up about the latest happenings,
> given how new NeuroDebian is, so this may be moot.

Yes, I agree. Moreover, if you look what we distribute for dapper and
gutsy right now it further reduces the likelihood. The logs of our
oldest mirror show _two_ machines requesting the package list for dapper
and a handful for gusty. None of them has requested an actual package
download forever. In contrast, the following LTS release 'hardy' still
serves on thousands of machines querying the NeuroDebian repository.

NB: LTS releases and scientific software

    The name suggest something you do not get -- at least in the scope
    of scientific use. Only packages in the ubuntu 'main' branch are
    covered by the LTS promise. Virtually none of the packages of
    scientific relevance is in 'main' -- not essential libraries
    (e.g. atlas, gsl, vtk), and sadly also no relevant applications.

    Those who do not have a support contract for LTS should _really_
    consider running Debian stable -- honestly! The main difference is
    that Debian stable gets support for about 3 years. Yes, not five,
    because the support is for the entire lifetime of a stable release
    (which is typically about 2 years) plus a year to migrate to the next
    (if the next release is delayed the support is extended of course).
    Most importantly, however, is that Debian stable comes with support
    (security fixes, etc.) for _all_ contained packages -- including leaf
    packages and very very special interest software.

    For more reasons to use Debian if you want long term availability
    see below...

> is it just a bandwidth issue?

No, we changed many things in the repository layout and content. Getting
rid of them will simplify things for us.

> If it is, I'd be happy to host a side-mirror of the files without
> having them part of NeuroDebian officially, anymore. 

Thanks for the offer, but I do not think it is necessaray (see below).

> Part of me wants to preserve all scientific bits for eternity.
> That way if some analysis that was done on Ubuntu 6.06 with a
> specific subset of NeuroDeb packages that was written up in a
> publication - at any point in the future, someone else can get to
> as close of an approximation as possible to the OS+software suite
> used and be able to replicate the work. I realize that we
> shouldn't have analyses that depend on very specific versions of
> everything to get the appropriate scientific results, but it'd be 
> reassuring to know that a particular environment can be
> replicated down the line. 
> 
> tl;dr - We should make the jobs of future digital archaeologists as easy
> as possible, no?

We feel the same. Again, Debian offers the resources for doing what you
want _right now_:

  http://snapshot.debian.org/

Every version of every package on a silver plate.

As far as I know Ubuntu users have no comparable service that they could
access. We perform snapshotting of the NeuroDebian repository as well.
If our recent grant proposal gets awarded, we'll be able to offer all
that as well. In combination with the above service Debian users will be able
to recreate any analysis environment they ever had. Same would be
possible for Ubuntu, if they ever start offering a snapshot service. But
at least NeuroDebian packages would be available indefinitely for them
too.

Hope that explains,

Michael

-- 
GPG key: 4096R/7FFB9E9B Michael Hanke
http://mih.voxindeserto.de