Thanks for posting this, and your commitment to this project.
This renaming is the kind of information that in my view is an absolutely priority to communicate well and timely. You did it perfectly, even the "friendly reminder to optionally diff ..." . But here is a request to make it happen sooner, next time something similar happens.
I understand ArchlinuxARM ressources and infrastructure cannot be compared to Archlinux x86 (personnel, mailing lists, forum, wiki, etc).
Here' a couple of suggestions. Things like this should be:
1. posted/pinned to the top of the boards. Made visually prominent
2. An effort should be made to communicate it,
way before the changes are made..
1. It should not only be posted in "Announcements" it should be pinned, so that it shows up prominently in the "Annoucements" box. I find the graphics and css theme of this forum too tiny for noticing small icons Or maybe create a new section ? "Important package changes" ? "News" ? Just like arch linux x86.
There is also difference in scope, urgency and importancy in a vague category like "Annoucements".
For example, current items there like:
- "forum restructuring" : important, but not "eternal", should be removed/unpinned after expire.
- "rules of the forum": important, and "permanent
Or for example items not there, but that should be there or in a similar named ("NEWS" ?)
- a big package update/restructure
This one besides "important" and "mandatory reading" also as a character of much more "urgent" and even "critical"
- big changes/updates the content/structure/defaults of the images/rootfs in
https://mirror.archlinuxarm.org/os/ One can sort them by "Last modified" but maybe a very simple CHANGELOG.txt could uploaded there ?
I DONT definetely mean a git log or big literary prose or similar, causing extra work. Bu just a simple imaginary example:
https://de3.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/os/CHANGELOG.txt$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '2024
november: big changes, important kernel version update. Make sure to check the forums
october: now shipping with kernel 6.xyz
2023
march: ssh keys changed from RSA to ED25519 standard
april: raspberry rootfsnow comes with systemd-resolved preconfigure/enabled etc instead of netctl
2022
february: the default user is now called "belly" instead of "'alarm"
january: wifi not enabled by default
october: now shipping with kernel 5.xyz
')
I say this, because I was just doing an "innocent" pacman -Syu and a "yay -Syu" . Didnt notice any important message scrolling by and ended up later with a:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', ' Missing AUR Packages: linux-raspberrypi')
Got puzzled. Started to panic. What ???
It took me some time to understand what was happening, searching the AUR, github repo, lotz of pacman -F queries etc.
I must have catched the time when the mirror was in the middle of an update, because only later after another "pacman -Syuw" did I got this one:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', ':: Replace linux-raspberrypi with core/linux-rpi-legacy? [Y/n]')
Anyway. Good that I ended up here. So now I understand it. But it was not:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')kernel rename coming soon
It was "kernel rename" already happened.
I would prefer to not have done the update, and then later read about it. In situations like this I want to read first and update later. I want to have the time to carefully check and diff my custom /boot/config.txt, cmdline.txt and the READMES in /boot/overlays.
Please do not take this as criticism. It is just the feedback of an average and interested user taking good care to always read the instructions on the package. I understand perfectly that this is the price and risks one has to pay for running a rolling release distro. But even after many, many years on Arch, I am not a guru for whom all of these changes are 100% "natural" and self evident. I need time to stop and digest them. I'm part of the 80% of users, not of the 20% of embeded developer working on this as their daily job. So, I kind of "get there" eventually just like anyone else. It just happens slower.