building an older release fails due to missing a package

[Nobuto Murata]

This might be a duplicate of Bug #1029279, but I leave it as is because it handles "building a newer release on a older host".

When building a precise image on a quantal host, the build fails on the final stage due to missing the precise syslinux theme.
It would be nice if ubuntu-defaults-builder installs the missing theme or inform on the first stage that the theme is still missing.

[2012-09-19 13:10:53] lb_binary_syslinux
P: Begin installing syslinux...
E: /usr/share/syslinux/themes/ubuntu-precise - no such directory.

live-build: 3.0~a57-1ubuntu4
ubuntu-defaults-builder: 0.38

[Nobuto Murata (nobuto)]

attached branch tries to install a syslinux theme of $SUITE specified with --release.
if the package does not exist (--release lucid on a quantal host), just exit with apt-get error before stating a build.

E: Unable to locate package syslinux-themes-ubuntu-lucid

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Nice catch, thanks! But shouldn't we _only_ install syslinux-themes-ubuntu-$SUITE, and not syslinux-themes-ubuntu in addition? We'd get two themes installed, and it's not clear which one gets picked then (presumably the newest on,e, as this needs to work for upgrades, too).

[Nobuto Murata (nobuto)]

I think you're right, syslinux-themes-ubuntu is not needed explicitly, but currently syslinux-themes-ubuntu is recommended by ubuntu-defaults-builder package. so changing recommends to syslinux-themes-ubuntu-quantal is appropriate?

syslinux theme is selected in /usr/lib/live/build/lb_binary_syslinux by LB_SYSLINUX_THEME set by ubuntu-defaults-image.
even if more than one themes are installed, the right theme (ubuntu-$SUITE) will be picked as far as I understand.ff

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I'd keep the Recommends:, as that will ensure the right package is installed if target and host release are the same. Otherwise we'd have to recommend an ever-growing list of -precise, -quantal, etc. packages.

Thanks for the followup! I'll merge this.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-defaults-builder - 0.40

---------------
ubuntu-defaults-builder (0.40) quantal; urgency=low

  * bin/ubuntu-defaults-image: Install syslinux-themes-ubuntu-$SUITE, to
    ensure the theme for the target release is available, and to fail early if
    it is not. Thanks Nobuto MURATA! (LP: #1053021)
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 20 Sep 2012 08:20:21 +0200

[Regolith Linux (regolith-linux)]

A problem with this change is that there are no syslinux theme packages past Xenial. So, when running on anything after, ubuntu-defaults-image fails to find a package and aborts.