[syslog-ng] Debian package news for syslog-ng 3.3 and 3.4

[Gergely Nagy]

Hi!

I've been providing syslog-ng 3.3 packages for a while[1], more than a
year, actually! And since I announced my intention to package syslog-ng
3.4 in January[2], I believe it's time to give an update on where things
stand, and what to expect from the repository in the coming weeks,
months. There are two important news I want to share:

- Ubuntu Natty (11.04) support will soon be discontinued. Official
  support for the platform ends this month, the repository will not see
  any further updates. I plan to completely remove it by December, but
  the most recent package already built (3.3.7RC2) will be available
  until then. (Though, since building for Natty is easy, I might end up
  uploading 3.3.7 final, before the nail hits the coffin.)

- syslog-ng 3.4 packages are coming, built from my sandbox branch, which
  is a collection of everything that's intended to reach the master
  branch, and are in already usable state.

  These include: an amqp destination, indented-multiline and linux 3.5+
  /dev/kmsg support, along with a host of bugfixes.

  The location of the repository will be:

    deb http://packages.madhouse-project.org/$VENDOR $RELEASE syslog-ng-devel

  Where $VENDOR is debian or ubuntu, and release is the particular OS
  release (wheezy, precise, etc).

  Initially packages will be provided for Ubuntu Oneiric, Precise and
  Quantal, along with Debian Squeeze, Wheezy and unstable. Ubuntu Lucid
  and Natty were dropped from the list compared to 3.3. Natty due to
  reaching its end of life, and Lucid because backporting all the
  required bits and pieces to it took up more time than all the rest
  combined.

  If there's a significant interest in syslog-ng 3.4 packages for Ubuntu
  Lucid, please let me know. A mass of demanding users can always
  convince me that the pain of backporting to lucid is worth it.

The syslog-ng 3.3.7RC2 packages are already in the repositories,
3.4.0alpha3 + patches is building as I write this, and it's very likely
they'll hit my archive tomorrow latest. The syslog-ng-devel component is
already created, and I'll soon start populating it with the required
dependencies on platforms that need them.

I've yet to figure out how to change my repository page[3] to allow
convenient selection of the various bits and pieces, so the information
there may lag behind for a little while.

 [1]: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.syslog-ng/11900
 [2]: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.syslog-ng/12990
 [3]: http://asylum.madhouse-project.org/projects/debian/

Finally, I'd like to share a few interesting statistics, a result of a
few greps through my server logs:

Since August 20, 2011, there have been 119 unique downloaders of the
Debian packages, 614 downloads in total (spanning all versions from
3.3.0beta2 up until 3.3.6.91). For Ubuntu, these numbers are 452 unique
downloaders, and 1563 downloads in total.

I'm quite happy about those numbers, these debs are by far the most
downloaded things I have created in the past decade (not counting one
particular package in the Debian archive I try to forget). :)

So a huge "Thank you!" goes out to everyone who uses these packages!

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