Meta-package naming for Xenial LTS backports

[Andy Whitcroft]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 08:40:46AM -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
> On 07/27/2016 08:04 AM, Andy Whitcroft wrote:
> > We have been discussing some naming for new meta-packages to allow for
> > automatic rolling upgrades between Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernels
> > within the LTS series.  This thread aims to firm those up.
> > 
> > Currently we have meta-packages of the following forms:
> > 
> >     linux{,-image,-headers,-signed,-tools}-<flavour>[-<variant>]
> > 
> > The flavour then represents the primary use case for the kernel (for
> > example generic and lowlatency) and the optional variant currently is
> > used to identify the HWE kernels (lts-<series>).  For example:
> > 
> >     linux-image-generic-lts-xenial
> > 
> > The desire is to offer a rolling HWE kernel, this means a kernel variant
> > which is updated automatically to the latest available HWE kernel within
> > the LTS.  We would expect that to update to the next HWE kernel at each
> > point release.  We wish to offer this in two forms, rolling until we
> > reach the next LTS release and continuing to roll after an upgrade.
> > Finally we wish to be able to offer early accesss to these updates as
> > soon as they are available for testing purposes.
> > 
> > We are proposing the following variants:
> > 
> >     -hwe-16.04
> >     -hwe-rolling
> >     -hwe-16.04-early
> >     -hwe-rolling-early
> > 
> > So for example:
> > 
> >     linux-generic-hwe-16.04
> > 
> > /me puts up some substantial scaffolding round his bikeshed.
> > 
> > -apw
> > 
> 
> I think the first 2 are fine. What is your intended use for "-early" ?
> I'm reluctant to endorse something like "-early" if it isn't a release
> requirement. Otherwise it'll get forgotten and grow stale.

The intent of -early is it updated on the same cadance as the main ones,
but it switches from lts-Y to lts-Z on first availability rather than
waiting for the point release.  So they are the same much of the time,
then when a new lts-Z is available that one will switch to it, we
stablise it, and then the non -early one moves over to join it.

-apw