[debian-mysql] FWD [Re: Bug#860970: release-notes: MariaDB vs MySQL section 2.2.3 needs clarifying on how to perform the upgrade]

[Vincent McIntyre]

Hello,

I think we need some expert input here. Any comments?
I am not in a position to run a test upgrade myself to
reproduce Paul's experience.

Kind regards
Vince

----- Forwarded message from Paul Gevers <elbrus at debian.org> -----

Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 08:34:29 +0200
From: Paul Gevers <elbrus at debian.org>
To: Vincent McIntyre <vincent.mcintyre at csiro.au>, 860970 at bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#860970: release-notes: MariaDB vs MySQL section 2.2.3 needs clarifying on how to perform the upgrade
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.8.0

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for trying to improve my proposal, I wasn't quite happy with it
either.

On 26-04-17 06:57, Vincent McIntyre wrote:
> I don't think the release team want upgrades to depend on backports,
> so I don't that's a viable option here.

I had the problem with this suggestion as well, but I didn't understand
the MySQL/MariaDB upgrade path better than that.

> But let's go back a step - you're saying that
> if:   you have a jessie system with mysql-server-5.x
>       and you dist-upgrade,
>       without explicitly installing default-mysql-server
> then: mysql-server-5.x gets uninstalled
>       and no mariadb-server-* package gets installed ?
> 
> If correct, that's a big problem.

I believe what you state here is true, as that is what I experienced on
my upgrade. When I upgraded, there wasn't mentioning of this yet (or I
didn't spot it) and it was exactly the reason why I went to look in the
release notes to provide info. The info that I found was missing
essential details or the right tone to trigger the system administrator
into the right actions.

> What the text is trying to tell people to do is to dist-upgrade,
> then install default-mysql-server. That second action should
> initiate the uninstall of mysql-server-5.x and then install
> mariadb-server-10.1. Is that what you took from the text?
> If not, can you think of a way to make it clearer?

I believe the mysql-server-5.x is already removed during the
dist-upgrade. At least that is what happened on my system. But maybe you
mean 'apt upgrade' (without dist-). If that is what you mean (and I
guess that should work), the text is by far not clear.

So something like (fully untested):
  MariaDB is now the default MySQL variant in Debian, at version 10.1.
  The Stretch release introduces a new mechanism for switching the
  default variant, using metapackages created from the
  mysql-defaults source package.
  For example, installing the metapackage
  default-mysql-server will install
  mariadb-server-10.1.
- Users who had
+ For upgrades from jessie, it is recommended to install
+ this metapackage after 'apt upgrade', but before 'apt dist-upgrade'
+ so that users who have
  mysql-server-5.5 or mysql-server-5.6 will have it
  removed and replaced by the MariaDB equivalent.
+ If no precaution is taken, mysql-server-5.x will be removed *without*
+ a replacement being installed.
  Similarly, installing default-mysql-client will install
  mariadb-client-10.1.

Paul

By the way, I think it should be 'meta-package' or 'meta package'
instead of 'metapackage' in correct English, but I am no native speaker.





----- End forwarded message -----

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