[Koha-devel] Upgrade db to v19.11

[dcook at prosentient.com.au]

I'll just add that the Debian package is built from a tarball, but - as Katrin says - it installs the files differently than a "single" tarball installation would. It's the same code in the end, but it's installed differently. (If you run something like "dpkg -L koha-common" you can get a good sense where the majority of the files have been installed.)

It's design may be a bit unintuitive as designed to be the base for many Koha instances, but there's no problem just running 1 Koha instance using the Debian packages. 

Honestly, I don't use Debian/Ubuntu for most of my production Koha servers, but I still build my own RPM packages from tarballs, because package installations just offer so many advantages over manual "from source" installations. 

With Debian packages, you even get a bit of an interactive experience when doing upgrades where it will prompt you if it detects you've made local customizations to (some) configuration files. It will ask if you want to keep your local version or accept the package's upstream version. Very nice.

If you don't like upgrading, you can always use apt to pin the package, or you can disable the APT repository in /etc/sources.list.d. 

As for Debian vs Ubuntu, a lot of us developers use Debian for our development and testing, so the best experience is probably going to be on Debian. You can check supported versions at https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Debian#Debian_Packages_on_Koha. While Koha is supported currently on Ubuntu 18.04, I'd say Debian is the safer choice. 

David Cook
Systems Librarian
Prosentient Systems
72/330 Wattle St
Ultimo, NSW 2007
Australia

Office: 02 9212 0899
Direct: 02 8005 0595

-----Original Message-----
From: Koha-devel <koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org> On Behalf Of Katrin Fischer
Sent: Monday, 16 December 2019 6:13 PM
To: koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Upgrade db to v19.11

Hi Paul,

as David pointed out, it should be fine, but of course a test is recommended. What you can do is install a 19.11 on a test server and then use your existing database. The mismatch of the version in the database and the source will trigger the web installer that will update your database structure. So yes, there are substantial changes, but Koha will take care of it. The most prominent for you will probably be the new biblio_metadata table which now holds the MARCXML record information.

When installing from packages the file structure will be different, but the result (Koha running well) should be the same. Package installations also give you a lot of helpful commands to use that make managing the instance even easier. Others might be able to tell you more about the differences/advantages.

Hope this helps,

Katrin


On 14.12.19 16:11, Paul A wrote:
> I have the possibility over the next month or two of examining the 
> upgrading Koha from 3.8.24 to 19.11 (latest stable release.)  We have 
> the hardware available, but have a couple of questions before I plan 
> the workflow:
>
> a) database migration? I have looked at the schemas, and am worried 
> that there are substantial changes. Our production servers contain 
> some 250,000 items. We are not a lending library, so have no concerns 
> with that side of library management -- only with pure cataloguing, 
> for which we use over 100 custom reports, 900 "sources", ten 
> customized biblio frameworks, etc -- how best to proceed? Is there a 
> script (or multiple scripts) that would do it?
>
> b) server software? does "pure" Debian (which we have never used in
> production) have advantages over Ubuntu LTS (with which we are 
> extremely comfortable)?
>
> c) We normally build from tarballs, but have received some criticism 
> in the past. The reason is that once we have a server locked into 
> production, we never (major security excepted) touch it; our 3.8.24 
> has now been running for 1,467 days without rebooting, and "if it 
> ain't broken, leave it alone."  Is the final installation 
> package/tarball identical using the different methods?
>
> Thanks in advance for your advice.
> Season's greetings,
> Paul
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