I’m posting this request even though it would require additional (although minor?) work on the part of the maintainers. I hope they/someone will consider it. Should I make the request elsewhere, like Bugzilla?
It would be helpful if the announcements included a “ranking”, something like:
Priority 1: This snapshot includes important security updates. All users should zypper dup it as soon as possible.
Priority 2: This is the large, approximately monthly Slowroll snapshot. All users should zypper dup it at their earliest convenience.
Priority 3: This snapshot contains updates to some number “N” packages. Users who are experiencing issues with any of them or otherwise want the latest versions should zypper dup this snapshot before requesting help or submitting bug reports.
Details:
I have seen it mentioned many times that the “Priority 2 large monthly Slowroll snapshot” is released on or around the 9th of the month, but if nothing else would like to see that officially stated somewhere, for instance at https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll. Even if so, I personally believe in the philosophy stated in the output of Python’simport this easter egg: “Explicit is better than implicit.”
It would be nice if a list (possible abridged if too long) of updated packages was included directly in the “News and Announcement” forum posts. BTW, the “Show Full Post…” button fails in recent Firefox and Chromium browsers, I assume because the mailing list archives site blocks “robot” attempts. (Doesn’t matter, the textual https link works.)
Optionally, it would be nice to have a brief description of the CVEs or other security patches addressed in “Priority 1 important security” announcements, or at least links to them. But this would likely require a significant amount of extra work.
Also BTW, having the announcements here in the forums is a large improvement compared to having to subscribe or browse the Factory mailing list. As was stated there several years ago, regular users who are not distro or package maintainers have no business being on that list (and IMO shouldn’t have to even read, much less post to it).
Related, it would be nice to have the announcements echoed to a public/subscribable read-only mailing list (“Do not reply to this email” / Reply-To: no-reply@somehwere). There wouldn’t have to be separate Slowroll and Tumbleweed lists – if it was just snapshot announcements and nothing else (no discussions) the combined volume wouldn’t be bothersome.
I do understand the “Please note that this mail was generated by a script.” subtitle in the Factory mailing list posts but assume that the script is invoked manually. If so, maybe a -p/--priority <1|2|3> commandline argument could reduce the extra effort to a manageable level.
Again, thanks for any consideration of these requests and/or comments suggesting alternate or improved ways to achieve the same results.
@OldButNotGuru My only comment here is that the wiki (a.o. en.o.o/Portal:Slowroll) i is definitely not the appropriate place for that. So that would mean different SlowRoll messages in the ML.
I’m requesting new meta-information/comments that will help Slowroll users review and decide.
I can’t find it now, but as I wrote it was once stated that non-maintainers shouldn’t post to the Factory list. I guess it’s my opinion that they shouldn’t read it, either. I personally don’t want to subscribe to it because with the discussions included there’s too much volume, but if my idea that a new user-centric, announce-only list be created and have the announcements automatically Cc’d there (without any extra work on the maintainer’spart) I’ll have to decide for myself if receiving all of Factory is worth my time.
Again, these are ideas and requests, not in any way demands.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, but I didn’t mean that the announcements should be at Portal:Slowroll, just that if the monthly updates aren’t explicitly labeled as such that at least the “monthly updates are on the 9th of the month” policy gets documented there.
The 9th is nowhere definitely set. That means, if we write down in the wiki that the update is to be expected at the 9th and we get it 3 days later, we have several useless threads here: Where is the update?! Why is it so late?! Is it broken?! Why aren‘t the maintainers working?! …
My statement was that the policy, which as I understand it and wrote above, is “on or around the 9th of the month” (emphasis added) should be clearly stated in the wiki or elsewhere instead of just being “something everyone knows” and occasionally mentioned in forum posts. So no … no “it’s the 10th, where’s the monthly update?” complaints. (OK, people would complain anyway. Nothing will stop that.)
But it was an fallback request anyway (“if nothing else would like to see …”) and it emphasizes my main point: That if the appropriate announcement included “This is the large, approximately monthly Slowroll snapshot” none of this would be confusing, regardless what date the snapshot was made.
I didn’t know that, and now feel even more guilty about requesting that person do additional work. Except that I still think it would be a very small amount.
If it’s not clear, I love Slowroll. Even if it’s not perfect it solved my impossible problem with OpenSUSE, that Leap was too out-of-date and Tumbleweed was too risky and subject to serious breakage for a primary, “daily driver” workstation. The https://get.opensuse.org/desktop/ download page has changed since I last checked it, but I distinctly remember it used to say something like, “Tumbleweed: Stable, tested”.
I always took exception to that. Everyone has their own definition of “stable” and “tested”, but that didn’t match my expectations when I was using Tumbleweed. (I’ve read that it’s gotten better since then.) And yes, I know that the Slowroll wiki states, “Currently, Slowroll is still in beta phase”. My personal opinion is that Slowroll should be the official, recommended-for-most-users OpenSUSE rolling release, with Tumbleweed for those who absolutely need the latest-and-greatest without the “it will often be broken and unusable” bleeding-edge of Factory.
And get the solo maintainer of Slowroll some additional manpower and official support.
I’m speculating, but I have the sense that the gist of your suggestion is: “When do we get to the slow part?” It seems to me that there a a lot of patches pushed as available, which is what I thought raw Tumbleweed was for.
Slowroll gets around 30% of the number of Tumbleweed updates. And the smaller part of the updates. The goal is to have it break less often for less time (compared to TW).
@marel: Thanks for the link to the Slowroll presentation. Very informative.
@bmwiedemann: Thanks for all your work on Slowroll, and for adding the “9th +/- 3” documentation to the wiki. I’m grateful that you found the suggestion worthwhile.
Not directly an answer to your request, but the (only and alone!) maintainer of Slowroll communicate and exchange on this Reddit Channel https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE_Slowroll/
Warm thanks for its incredible and qualitative work on Slowroll!
Except that I still think it would be a very small amount.