Re: [Health] OT: gnuhealth package in Debian (was: Problems with importing translation files in a VBox installation)

[Luis Falcon]

Hi Mathias
On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:22:19 +0200
Mathias Behrle <address@hidden> wrote:

> * Luis Falcon: " Re: [Health] OT: gnuhealth package in Debian (was:
> Problems with importing translation files in a VBox
> installation)" (Thu, 12 Jun 2014 08:31:18 -0500):
> 
> > Hi Mathias, all
> > On Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:45:38 +0200
> > Mathias Behrle <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > > * Cédric Krier: " Re: [Health] [HEALTH] Problems with importing
> > > translation files in a VBox installation" (Thu, 12 Jun 2014
> > > 07:50:58 +0200):
> > > 
> > > Hi all,
> > > 
> > > several subjects were mixed up in this thread.
> > > 
> > > > On 11 Jun 22:54, Luis Falcon wrote:
> > > > > Dear Emilien
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:59:19 +0200
> > > > > Emilien Klein <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > Hi Constantine,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 2014-06-11 22:29 GMT+02:00 Kostis Mousafiris
> > > > > > <address@hidden>:
> > > > > > > P.S.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Also, IMHO, if anyone can, it would be highly desirable to
> > > > > > > pre-package all this in a deb package-based distro and
> > > > > > > not in an OpenSUSE environement :-D
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > GNU Health has been packaged for Debian, with version 2.4.1
> > > > > > currently available in Debian Testing.
> > > > > > But there are several issues that looks like that I'm going
> > > > > > to remove the package from the Debian archive in the coming
> > > > > > 2 weeks, namely version conflicts with Tryton which renders
> > > > > > the package unbuildable/uninstallable in Debian sid for 2/3
> > > > > > of the year.
> > > > > This does not make sense.
> > > 
> > > True. The current gnuhealth package is due to uninstallation form
> > > the archive, becuase it fails with piuparts (an installation
> > > testing tool). It is basically impossible for Emilien to fix this
> > > package, because it can not be built against tryton 3.0 any more
> > > (3.2 sitting in sid).
> > As Cedric said, Debian packaging system should be able to have to
> > different versions of a package, like Tryton.
> 
> Of course those things can be done in Debian, but not all that can be
> done is also opportune to be done. Just think, that a package in
> Debian has to be supported security wise for their lifetime. That is
> much longer than e.g. Tryton or GnuHealth are providing support for
> their releases, so this support is up to the package maintainer. To
> not run into maintenance hell, the support of parallel versions of a
> piece of software has to be evaluated rather strictly, for good
> reasons. 
> > > Emilien decided to fix the package in removing those components,
> > > that tried to make the package work "out of the box". To say the
> > > truth, I am one of those not being sad about that, because I had
> > > several issues with that setup. The upcoming gnuhealth package
> > > will just install the modules on the system, which for me is the
> > > proper way. So the future gnuhealth package (due to upload with
> > > availability of gnuhealth for Tryton 3.2) for me is in better
> > > shape as before.
> > Great !
> > > > > In a similar manner that python2 and python3 can co-exist on
> > > > > the same system, you can perfectly have two versions of
> > > > > Tryton or GNU Health. 
> > > > 
> > > > For now, it is not really possible to have 2 different series of
> > > > Tryton installed on the same «site-packages». That's the
> > > > problem of Debian packages. But I think Debian packager could
> > > > provide 2 packages (not installable both together) or more
> > > > packages for each supported Tryton series. This will allow for
> > > > those who have installed GNU Health to stay on the old series
> > > > until the support of the new series came out. It will also give
> > > > more flexibility to the user to stick on a specific series for
> > > > a while instead of forcing everyone to upgrade.
> > You can just use the standard installation method [1] - which allows
> > co-existing versions of Tryton - , and enjoy GNU Health in your
> > favorite Libre Operating System or GNU/Linux distro :)
> 
> Of course you can install software aside from the package manager of
> your distribution. But you should really only do it, if you are aware
> of the consequences. After a short glance at gnuhealth_install.sh I
> see - correct me, if I should be wrong - , that the server
> installation uses pip to install python packages without using a
> virtual environment. This will probably mostly work, if the machine
> is dedicated alone for running gnuhealth. As soon as you will install
> e.g. another package depending on another version of a python package
> you will be in trouble. A sane solution for me would be to provide
> something like a fabric file, creating the virtualenv etc.. This
> still leaves the user to care for updates or securtiy fixes
> separately from the system updates.
> 
This is already in place.

GNU Health installer places GNU Health in a separate OS and DB
user ( eg, /home/gnuhealth) . PIP is run with then "--user" argument ,
so they will also be installed under that local environment
(eg, /home/gnuhealth/.local). 

Production environments should only have one instance, but on
development / training environments you could have many DB instances
(many DBs under one same user) and/or many gnu health installations.

> > > Exactly. That was evaluated to do and still is in the pipeline.
> > > There is a trade-off to be handled between effort, distribution
> > > conventions and popularity of the package.
> > > 
> > > That said, I want to emphasize, that it is currently very well
> > > possible to stick with specific Tryton versions via
> > > debian.tryton.org. After some testing of the new gnuhealth
> > > package I will consider to put it also in the backports section.
> > > The latter for me seems to be the preferable way, as it will be
> > > possible to provide gnuhealth for quite more different scenarios
> > > than it could be in Debian main.
> > Great ! Good to know that GNU Health 2.6 will be considered in
> > Debian.
> > 
> > Please consider using the gnuhealth installer as the base for the
> > installation package in your distro. It much easier to interact
> > with the community, following the "official" installation
> > instructions, reporting issues, etc..
> > 
> > This subject has been long debated, so I won't get into it again :)
> 
> So I won't add to the arguments above...;)
>  
> > That said, I know there are different views on this, and I respect
> > each operating system/distro way of packaging / installing GNU
> > Health. 
> > 
> > Thanks a lot to all of you for your suggestions and support !
> 
> Thanks for your work on gnuhealth!
>  
Thank you for contributing !

Best,
> > 1.-
> > http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=GNU_Health/Installation
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 



-- 
Luis Falcon
GNU Health : The Free Health and Hospital Information System
http://health.gnu.org
@gnuhealth