Bug 332695

Summary: packaging: provide repo with the latest "obsolete"/unsupported packages
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 10.3 Reporter: macias - <bluedzins>
Component: OtherAssignee: E-mail List <bnc-team-screening>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity: Enhancement    
Priority: P5 - None    
Version: Final   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i586   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description macias - 2007-10-10 17:09:36 UTC 
Such repo could be called UNSUPPORTED, or ARCHIVE.

Reason: there are some software that works beautifully , but it is not included with newer version of opensuse. Examples: cups 1.2 does not work so well as cups 1.1, smbfs is completely removed from opensuse.

But this software is valuable, useful and simply ___WORKS___. This is key issue here. So please, add repo with older versions of software which is well known of its usefulness.

And why like that: because it should be easier for user to make her/his hardware cooperate with suse, not by searching tons of pages, but simply trying old, well testes software.

Bottom line: user should not be "lucky" that suse works with hardware, it should be normal.
Comment 1 Mark Gordon 2007-10-10 19:57:24 UTC 
We've already shipped SUSE Linux 10.1, which seems like exactly what you're requesting: old, tested software.  We can't simply freeze the cups, kernel, etc. versions at 10.1 levels and never move forward, and integration of archaic versions of such key packages into newer OS versions would not be as trivial as is suggested here.  For less integral software, we already make various alternatives available (e.g. the four versions of libstdc++ I find on the 10.3 install).  Resolving INVALID.

If you want longer-term support for something akin to 10.1, you might want to investigate SLE.  It has cups 1.1 and a kernel with smbfs.
Comment 2 macias - 2007-10-10 20:33:10 UTC 
Mark, misunderstanding I think. I am not saying that opensuse 10.3 should include cups 1.1. No. But there should be a repo FOR opensuse 10.3 with cups 1.1. As an extra package. And this repo should be distinct from all "normal" repos.

Cups 1.1 is a good example because it is well know it works fine with certain hardware (and btw. I am not saying to store all possible software there, but widely proven that older version is more reliable than newer).

Of course it would be best, if opensuse would contain working cups or smbfs, but cups developers explicitly said they won't fix cups 1.2, and removing smbfs is your (I mean opensuse team) call.

So I would say such "rescue" repo would be valuable.

What do you think?