"No Release file" from do-release-upgrade with an aptly repo

[Sam Varshavchik]

Liam Proven writes:

> [2] If you're in the habit of recompiling OS components, and packaging
> them yourself, then TBH, it seems to me that Ubuntu is not the right
> distro for you.

Well, I am not exactly talking about rebuilding the kernel, X, or glibc.

Instead, let's pick some application that has no downstream dependencies.  
Just pulling something randomly out of my head: some PDF viewer, for  
example. This is not my use case but this is a good analogy.

Suppose that something this PDF viewer's Ubuntu package is not how you want  
it to be, the point is that you have the power to change it. That's what  
free software is all about, after all. So why shouldn't you be able to build  
this PDF viewer yourself, be able to update it seamlessly, and also have it  
updated as part of upgrading from one release to another? I see nothing  
wrong with that.

If someone has the skills to handle the rebuilding by themselves, why put up  
roadblocks to integrating their own builds into the distribution?

> Ubuntu is designed to be an easy-to-use distro for
> non-technical people.

Well, if it's easy for non-technical people, then I would expect it to be  
easy to use for technical people too.

> I do not want to argue but no, it seems to me that that is _not_ the
> question here.
>
> Because there is an easy answer to that: you _can_ set up your own
> repos. But that is more of a Debian sort of thing to do.

I see just as many, if not more, Ubuntu than Debian repositories.

> But if I understand you correctly, you haven't set up a repo at all, I think.

No, I did set up a repo.

> You want it to get packages from the local filesystem.
>
> That's not a repo.

On the contrary, it is a repo.

$ grep file: /etc/apt/sources.list
deb file:///home/mrsam/.aptly/public focal main

That's a repository for focal. With full rights and privileges of. Created  
by aptly.

A file:/// URL in /etc/apt/sources.list works just fine. apt will look there  
and expect to find a repository structure, with Packages file, et. al.

> If you want or need a repo, then set up a repo!

I did. I set it up. It's even signed by my gpg key, that I added to apt. And  
apt uses it just fine. It reads and updates packages from it. update-manager  
does not.

> > If you're saying: no, stick with the default repositories and whatever's in
> > there. But I must note the wide availability of third part repositories for
> > Ubuntu, both free software and commercial software, especially for LTS
> > releases.
>
> Well, yes, but again, there are important considerations here that you
> are ignoring.
>
> [1] These are actual online repos. If that's what you need, make one.

Well, yes, looks like that's the way forward for me: set up apache and have  
it serve the same filesystem repo that I already have. Just to make update- 
manager happy. That should get me past that roadblock, hopefully it'll be  
the last one.

> [3] They cause a lot of problems and distros are moving away from this
> stuff these days. That is why Snaps and Flatpak exist. If you just
> want to package your own stuff, look into making Snaps or Flatpaks or
> even, my personal favourite, AppImages.

The well-publicized Firefox issue in 22 highlights, quite effectively, the  
technical disadvantages of going in that direction.

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