Versioning and Packaging for Linux Distributions

[B. Wilson]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out the best way to package Metamath for my Linux distribution.

The main issue is that the metamath.tar.bz URL [0] seems to be getting ninja updated. This conflicts with the desire to have a one-to-one map between version numbers and sources. I assume the tar is reflecting set.mm updates while the metamath executable source remains static at version 0.178.

In particular, I am packaging for Void Linux [2] which does not package directly from git branches. It requires stable versions as a policy. What would be the best way to go about packaging up metamath in this scenario?

One idea that comes to mind is to offer only the executable, requiring users to manually install their desired proof databases. However, it seems that the metamath executable isn't being packaged up on its own [1].

If I am just missing something obvious, or if anyone has better ideas, I would appreciate some pointers.

Cheers,
B. Wilson


[0]:http://us.metamath.org/downloads/metamath.tar.bz2
[1]:https://github.com/metamath/metamath-exe/releases
[2]:https://voidlinux.org/

[Giovanni Mascellani]

Hi,

Il 23/10/19 09:24, 'B. Wilson' via Metamath ha scritto:

> One idea that comes to mind is to offer only the executable,
> requiring users to manually install their desired proof databases.
> However, it seems that the metamath executable isn't being packaged
> up on its own [1].

Having the idea of eventually packaging Metamath for my distribution as
well (Debian[1]), I second the proposal of having a clearer map version
-> source code. In particular, I would suggest to use git tags the
indicate versions in the metamath-exe repository. GitHub will
automatically create "releases" (together with zipballs and tarballs)
once tags are pushed to the repository.

[1] Which indirectly means all the derivatives too, including Ubuntu.

For clarity, this is not a hard policy for packaging for Debian.
However, if there is a way to automatically list the available upstream
releases (like for example a populated "releases" page), there are
clever Debian scripts that automatically notify developers of the
availability of new releases.

Hopefully making metamath available on distributions will help people
discovering and using it.

Thanks, Giovanni.
--
Giovanni Mascellani <g.masc...@gmail.com>
Postdoc researcher - Université Libre de Bruxelles