Notes on Comparing Re-Spins to Release

A Little Script

We have a little script in place that does the checking for you. It is located in the jigdo/unity/ directory, from where anyone can download it, too. What it does is:

1. Get a list of RPMs in an original spin
2. Match each of the RPMs in the original spin to an RPM in the Re-Spin based on the %{NAME} RPM header, and the %{ARCH} RPM header
3. Keep track of RPMs in the original spin for which there is no match in the Re-Spin

RPMs Missing

Usually, when RPMs are missing, this is no big deal. For the 20071218 for example we are missing 'gutenprint-plugin', which was most probably a dependency of one of the packages in the original release, but the updated version of the package depending on it does no longer require it: thus the package will not be pulled in to the package set on the Re-Spin.

For our 20071211 spin however, we seemed to be missing a lot more. nss_ldap, ftp, openssh-clients and openssh-server amongst many others. As soon as that shows up, drop a message with the output on the test-team mailing list.

Extra RPMs

You will most definitely find 'extra' RPMs on the Re-Spin; these are new dependencies of the updated versions of the packages in the package set of the original spin and can thus be considered a feature rather then a bug. This cannot be a show-stopper.

More about the Script

You run the script as follows:

1. You need the release tree or the release DVD iso for the same architecture, and you run the script with:
   

   ./gold_vs_respin.sh /path/to/release/tree-or-iso /path/to/respin/tree-or-iso

2. You will need to have sudo configured as the script uses sudo extensively in order to be able to loopmount ISO images -should you specify any, and create temporary directories in /mnt for that purpose, too. Nonetheless if both parameters you specify are directory trees, the script will still create /mnt/respin-mnt, and symlinks in that directory to the directory trees you specified.