Re: release repository changed names, unwanted forced update to 3.9.0, broke all flowgraphs

[Tom McDermott]

Hi Josh, Nick.    My panic level has declined now that I was able to get 3.8.2 back up

and running in time for tomorrow !   I am grateful to the very talented folks that provide

good advice (and solutions) here on the list and on the project.

-- Tom, N5EG

On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 3:45 PM Josh <jbmsdr@gmail.com> wrote:

Tom,

This was an unfortunate consequence of updating the main gnuradio-releases PPA to 3.9 (since it is the latest release).  Clearly we need a strategy here and to learn how PPAs are handled on other projects.

There is currently a gnuradio-releases-3.8 repository, so if you are planning to stay with 3.8 (currently 3.8.2.0) and the supported 3.8 OOTs, this would be the PPA to switch over to.

see: https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/InstallingGR#Ubuntu_PPA_Installation

I apologize for the lack of communication in this shift.  One of our goals going forward is to make installation of GNU Radio easier and more straightforward, and the Ubuntu PPA has been one of our main installation channels.  Ideally .deb packages will be built as part of the CI in the future as well to keep master builds up to date as well.  If anyone has insight or experience with doing this in an automated way, please reach out.

Nick - thank you for the recommendation to create the version specific metapackage.  Would this be preferable to a separate PPA?  The separate PPA was done out of convenience more than anything.

In the main Ubuntu repository, only the pre 3.8 release candidate made it there in time, so without a PPA specified, that what gets installed from apt-get.

Josh

On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 1:35 PM Nick Foster <bistromath@gmail.com> wrote:

I went into this assuming it would be easy to downgrade to 3.8, and discovered it was not. All of the individual 3.8.[1,2] packages are in there labeled with their version in the name, but the main 'gnuradio' package installs 3.9.

Maybe it's a good opportunity to create a gnuradio-3.8 metapackage in the PPA? If we're going to be providing long-term support for 3.8, that should probably include supporting its installation and update as well.

That said, you should be able to specifically install 3.8 and prevent it from updating by doing:

$ apt-cache policy gnuradio

gnuradio:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.9.0.0-0~gnuradio~focal-1
  Version table:
     3.9.0.0-0~gnuradio~focal-1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnuradio/gnuradio-releases/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
     3.8.1.0~rc1-2build2 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ sudo apt remove gnuradio

$ sudo apt install gnuradio=3.8.1.0~rc1-2build2

I don't know why 3.8.2 packages exist if the other installation candidate for the main package is only 3.8.1. Ideally we would have a 3.8 package which would receive updates from the maint-3.8 branch via PPA.

Nick

On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 7:48 AM Tom McDermott <tom.n5eg@gmail.com> wrote:

In trying to update all software in Ubuntu 20.04 using the GUI updater tool, the updater failed due to

unable to access some repository.   sudo apt update identified the gnuradio PPA focal changing the

name of the release from something like gnuradio releases    to  gnuradio - releases

I accepted the update and then continued the upgrade.

This update downloaded and replaced gnuradio 3.8 with gnuradio 3.9    Now all of my flowgraphs

fail due to numerous errors, some of them are complaining filter parameter name errors, etc.

Is there some easy way to revert this change without having to rip all of gnuradio out, find the 3.8

repository, and start all over again?   If not, what did the 3.8 repository change its name to?

-- Tom, N5EG