[opam-devel] Fedora RPMs

[Louis Gesbert]

Indeed, here is how a go for most of my tests:

```
<get to a fresh terminal>
export OPAMROOT=/tmp/temp-opamroot
opam init
eval $(opam config env)
play with it
```
This has the big advantage of being temporary and local to that terminal. A single command is enough if you want to use it in another terminal: `eval $(opam config env --root=/tmp/temp-opamroot)`


If you want to experiment on your current state, though, copying `~/.opam` to /tmp could cause problems because of OCaml relocation issues. So in that case, you'd be safe copying `~/.opam` to a backup before doing dangerous stuff, and restoring it afterwards. 

Adding this to the Tricks page [1] is probably a good idea, indeed

> I know I was unhappy when I tested 1.2 and my repository format was silently
> updated to 1.2, making it harder to go back

Sorry about that... the release announce warned about it, but you can't be sure everyone will see the message.

Cheers,
Louis


[1] http://opam.ocaml.org/doc/Tricks.html

> - Gabriel Scherer, 26/01/2015 15:49 -
> opam-devel, is there a recommended fool-proof way to save an opam root
> before installing another OPAM version to experiment with it, and be able
> to come back to one's usual environment?
> 
> I'd like to test Jon's packages, but I'm a bit wary of losing/corrupting
> the dozen of switches I have already. I'm thinking of basically
>   mv ~/.opam ~/.opam.bak
>   <uninstall my opam>
>   <try the packages then uninstall them>
>   mv ~/.opam.bak ~/.opam
>   <reinstall my opam>
> 
> If there is nothing wrong with this approach, it might be useful to
> document it somewhere -- it's not in the developer manual for example. This
> could be useful when asking users to test beta-releases of OPAM as well (I
> know I was unhappy when I tested 1.2 and my repository format was silently
> updated to 1.2, making it harder to go back).
> 
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Jon Ludlam <jonathan.ludlam at citrix.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'd like to ask for help with testing the RPMs I've built for opam
> > for Fedora.
> >
> > I've submitted a some review requests to get opam into Fedora. This has
> > involved getting 6 other packages into RPMs as there was pushback on
> > using the bundled libraries as part of the RPM
> > (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1060436). These are going
> > through the usual process of being reviewed, but I thought it would be
> > useful to test them from a functional perspective too. The top-level
> > review request is here:
> >
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1185099
> >
> > For ease of testing, I have built them using copr, Fedora's build
> > service, and the RPMs can be installed directly from there. There
> > are instructions on how to do that on the project page:
> >
> > https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/jonludlam/opam/
> >
> > I'd be really grateful if anyone had a few minutes to look and see if
> > there's anything obviously wrong with them.
> >
> > Thanks a lot!
> >
> > Jon
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > opam-devel mailing list
> > opam-devel at lists.ocaml.org
> > http://lists.ocaml.org/listinfo/opam-devel
> >