[BlueOnyx:13176] Re: Another BlueOnyx Theme Progress report

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Dirk,

> Do you also plan and update of the layout for existing installations?

Yes, but only for BlueOnyx 5107R and BlueOnyx 5108R.

BlueOnyx 5106R is unfortunately out of the question.

It will not be possible to get the GUI to work on a PHP older than
PHP-5.3. CodeIgniter needs PHP-5.3 and a lot of coding that I do these
days relies heavily on PHP-5.3, too. I considered to make it backwards
compatible very early on. But then again: We're coding for the future
and PHP-5.1.6 (as present on BlueOnyx 5106R) is since long dead. Not
being able to use the extended command sets of PHP-5.2 or PHP-5.3 is a
serious problem these days, as a lot of coding quickly gets a hell of a
lot more complex otherwise.

In general we have two choices how we can upgrade BlueOnyx 5107R and
5108R to bring them up to 5207R or 5208R respectively:

a.) Mandatory YUM update. Once everything is ready and tested, we could
release the new RPMs simply as a YUM update. During that YUM update the
old GUI will be entirely replaced with the new one and there will be no
way to keep the old GUI. To me this seems to be a bit drastic.

b.) Voluntary YUM update. If nothing is done, the GUI remains the same
and the 5107R or 5108R server(s) in question will continue to just use
the old GUI. But if a script is run manually from the command line, then
the box will be tied into the 5207R or 5208R YUM repository. Then "yum
update" is run and the update is carried out as a user launched
transaction. This change then cannot be undone. At the end of the "yum
update" the box will be fully transformed into either a 5207R or 5208R.

Option (b) seems like the best way to go, so that's what's currently
planned.

In any case we're prepared to continue to support 5107R and 5108R for
the time being, as the build procedure for updates will build RPMs for
both from the same sources. It's just that the RPMs with the new GUI
bits and pieces won't land in the same YUM repositories that the "old
style" GUI BlueOnyx uses.

Just one small problem there:

Third party PKGs for BlueOnyx often contain GUI elements, too. So if
someone has third party PKGs with extra GUI bits installed prior to
upgrading his BlueOnyx, then after the transition to 5207R or 5208R the
third party GUI pages for these PKGs will no longer be visible.

Even their menu entries will be gone, as the new GUI uses a different
directory for the menu XML files. But you can still see the software as
installed under "Installed Software" and (except for their GUI bits and
pieces) it will continue to work normally.

Then client(s) then can simply run a NewLinQ update from inside the new
GUI to upgrade the installed PKGs with versions that contain the new GUI
bits and pieces for said packages.

So that won't be much of an issue either. It just adds one extra step to
the upgrade procedure.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber