Impact
======
The purpose of osinfo-db is to provide a database of guest operating systems for use by virtualization provisioning tools using the libosinfo library. The two primary users are the GNOME Boxes and Virt Manager apps.
This SRU updates the database to the latest v20231027 release, which updates the data for many non-Ubuntu Linux distros.
It also includes patches that all have been applied upstream and will be included in the next osinfo-db stable release:
1. Add initial 24.04 LTS release data. Because it is marked prerelease, it will not shown in the Download an OS feature of GNOME Boxes, but at least a 24.04 LTS ISO will be recognized as Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
2. Update data for the Ubuntu 23.10 stable release. The existing data was prerelease.
3. Mark 23.10 as the latest stable Ubuntu release.
4. Update the 22.04 LTS download links to use the "latest" redirect links so that they will keep working after a new 22.04 LTS point release. Currently, they are broken because they were pointing to 22.04.2.
Test Case 0
===========
osinfo-db has an extensive test suite to validate the data files. If the test suite fails, it will fail the build. These tests are also run as autopkgtests.
Ensure the build succeeds and the autopkgtest passes
Prerequisites for remaining tests
================================
1. Install the update
2. Open a terminal and run
sudo apt install gnome-boxes
Test Case 1
===========
1. Run gnome-boxes
2. Click + then press "Download an operating system" (The UI varies depending on the version of gnome-boxes).
3. Select Ubuntu 23.10 x86_64 (Live)
4. The ISO will download to your Downloads folder
5. When it completes, the wizard will prompt you to create a Ubuntu 23.10 box.
Complete the wizard then complete the Ubuntu 23.10 install.
6. After the install, the virtual machine will reboot. Click the Virtual Machine and log into the Ubuntu 23.10 virtual machine.
7. Open a terminal and run this command: cat /etc/os-release to verify that you are using Ubuntu 23.10.
8. Afterwards, you can power off the virtual machine.
Test Case 2
===========
1. Run gnome-boxes
2. Click + then press "Download an operating system" (The UI varies depending on the version of gnome-boxes).
3. Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x86_64 (Live)
4. The ISO will download to your Downloads folder
5. When it completes, the wizard will prompt you to create a Ubuntu 22.04 LTS box.
Enable the Express Install option.
Complete the wizard (it likely asks for a username and password).
6. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS should successfully install in the virtual machine without user interaction needed. After the install, the virtual machine will reboot. Click the Virtual Machine and log into the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS virtual machine.
7. Open a terminal and run this command: cat /etc/os-release to verify that you are using Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS.
8. Afterwards, you can power off the virtual machine.
Test Case 3
===========
From a terminal, run
osinfo-query os vendor="Canonical Ltd"
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 23.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and 24.04 LTS should be included in the list.
Where problems could occur
==========================
It is always possible to use ISOs not recognized by osinfo-db with either GNOME Boxes or Virt Manager. osinfo-db provides useful metadata like recommended RAM, recommended hard disk size, and what virtualized hardware interfaces are supported.
This update significantly improves the ability of those apps to recognize distros released in 2023 while also making improvements to older distros.
The most likely possible problem is that some download links may no longer work. However, we know that the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS download link was broken before this update so the download links will be better with this update.
Other Info
==========
I wish to skip doing an SRU for Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar" since it goes end of life approximately January which leaves limited time to handle SRUs.
This bug was fixed in the package osinfo-db - 0.20231027-1ubuntu2
---------------
osinfo-db (0.20231027-
* Update 24.04 patch (LP: #2045703)
* Add patch to mark Ubuntu 23.10 as latest stable Ubuntu release
* Add patch to use latest redirect download links for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
-- Jeremy Bícha <email address hidden> Tue, 05 Dec 2023 17:45:54 -0500