guidelines for docs/misc/distributions.txt

[Tim Graham]

Hi,

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/misc/distributions/ is rather out-
of-date with respective to the versions of Django that are shipping
with each OS. A summary of tickets that are currently accepted:

8417 - request to add ArchLinux
8497 - request to add OpenSolaris
9606 - request to add OpenSUSE
9667 - suggestion to replace package versions with links to up-to-date
searches on the distributions page
9911 - request to update Debian version
10319 - new instructions for MacPorts

I think the suggestion to link to a search on each distribution's
website makes the most sense, and perhaps adding a link to a wiki page
that could contain a more in-depth listing of distro specific notes
might be good since it would be more easy to update and keep current?
I can work on updating the page once a decision is made.

Tim

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 09:28 -0800, Tim Graham wrote:
> Hi,
>
> http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/misc/distributions/ is rather out-
> of-date with respective to the versions of Django that are shipping
> with each OS. A summary of tickets that are currently accepted:
>
> 8417 - request to add ArchLinux
> 8497 - request to add OpenSolaris
> 9606 - request to add OpenSUSE
> 9667 - suggestion to replace package versions with links to up-to-date
> searches on the distributions page
> 9911 - request to update Debian version
> 10319 - new instructions for MacPorts
>
> I think the suggestion to link to a search on each distribution's
> website makes the most sense,

I'd actually prefer to have much less than that. We say something like
"if you're using Linux or a Unix installation, such as OpenSolaris,
check with your distributor to see if they already package Django." If
you're using a Linux distro and don't know how to find out if a package
is available, then now is a good time to learn anyway.

Keeping even a list of links to most recent packages up to date is going
to be onerous. There are over 200 Linux distributions. Where do we draw
the line? By favouring nobody special, it's easier.

Then we definitely can have a wiki page of links to the latest packages
and all 200 Linux distros plus Sun plus SCO plus IBM can all update it
themselves.

We spend a lot of time, unfortunately, doing OS-specific support and it
takes time away from things that are much more in scope for Django. We
can't really avoid doing something special for Mac and Windows, since
their general third-party packaging support is so woeful as to be almost
non-existent. Linux and Unix distros have generally solved that problem,
to the point of providing standard tools to allow package searches and
installs, so let's rely on them as much as we can.

Regards,
Malcolm

[Russell Keith-Magee]

+1. This is something we can very easily defer to the wiki and the community.

There are two parts required here -

1) The wiki needs to be updated, adding an index page for installation
instructions, plus linking to individual pages for the install
instructions for each distro),

2) A first draft of the text to put on the installation instructions page.

This should also be opened as a new ticket, unifying (and deprecating)
the other tickets you mentioned.

Yours
Russ Magee %-)

[Tim Graham]

I've created the following ticket to address the issue along with an
initial patch:
http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/10424

The new page for distribution specific installation instructions can
be found:
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/Distributions

Hope that helps,
Tim

On Mar 5, 7:40 am, Russell Keith-Magee <freakboy3...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Malcolm Tredinnick
>
>
>
> <malc...@pointy-stick.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 09:28 -0800, Tim Graham wrote:
> >> Hi,
>

> >>http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/misc/distributions/is rather out-