Subversion version control system information preview?

[Mikerman]

If one of the devs has a moment, I wonder if you might briefly explain why the version control system is moving from CVS  to Subversion--it would be interesting to hear.

Also, for us non-devs, will there be any apparent ramifications from the switch, apart from (presumably) using a different compiling instruction when compiling/updating the source code?

I assume that info. will be coming at a certain point, but just was curious as a pseudo-techie.  Thanks--

[dan_a]

There are two big differences between SVN and CVS.

1.  In SVN you can rename files and directories, and it understands that they are the same as before they were renamed.  CVS saw them as new, separate files so would lose all the history for them.

2.  When you do a change that affects a lot of files, CVS sees that as one change for each file, where as SVN sees it as one single change.

There are a number of other differences that may change the way we work in future, but for now I don't think non-developers will see many changes.  Oh, SVN seems to be quicker than CVS too, which is always good  

[GodEater]

I won't make any difference to the command you issue to compile either - that's unchanged.

The only change you'll see is if you're checking the code tree out yourself. Instead of the old CVS command you'll now be doing :

Code: [Select]

svn co svn://svn.rockbox.org/rockbox/trunk rockbox

[Mikerman]

And I see that the Simple Guide to Compiling already has the new SVN commands info.--super!

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SimpleGuideToCompiling

A quick question:  if one previously had checked out the source code via CVS and patched it, can one now update the code via SVN and the SVN update command, or does one need to start from scratch with a download of the source code via SVN?  Thanks--

[Rincewind]

you can checkout the sources from svn to a different directory, then make a diff of your two complete source trees against each other. then you can apply this patch to the svn checkout.
The only problem is, you would need the very last cvs version and the first svn version (so that there are no commits inbetween).

I don't know if this works, I haven't tried it yet with my sources.

I don't think that a svn update directly on your old source works.

[Mikerman]

Thanks, and in that case it really just seems easiest to start from scratch with a fresh source download from SVN.  (Not a hassle, really, unless one has lots of patches, especially where manual changes need to be made.)

[bluebrother]

to the best of my knowledge the cvs server is still up, and I'm pretty sure it reflects the state of the last cvs commit. So you can simply cvs diff -u > patchfile and apply that to the new svn tree (and hope that patch didn't break by some changes made in the time between, but during the transition there were only a few commits.)

[Mikerman]

And so, I'm a bit confused as to whether CVS is used at the present time, or if one should be using SVN.  (And if the latter, I got the message when I tried, "bash: svn: command not found" and I'm sure that it must be something I didn't do although I thought that I followed the SVN-modified "Simple Guide" instructions; sorry if I'm jumping the gun here ...)

[PaulPosition]

Hmm, you probably need to get subversion installed... :p

What dev. environment are you using, cygwin or vmware image? I know under debian (which vmware runs) you could 'apt-get update' and then 'apt-get install subversion' ..  Under cygwin I don't know but surely someone will tell you if it's not already in the wiki.

[Mikerman]

I kinda thought that was it, but didn't see anything in the "Simple Guide" about installing SVN/where to get it.  And I was trying to be literal to the instructions, for safety.  (It's been so long that I originally installed for CVS whatever I needed to install.)  

Where to get SVN/any special instructions as to installing it?  Again, I may be jumping the gun on this and perhaps this all was going to come, all in good time.

(In the meanwhile, I was able to update the code I have with CVS--still up and running.)  

And I'm in Cgywin-land (and actually did look before leaping).  

[scorche]

The guides have yet to be rewritten.

You need to re-run the Cygwin config to install SVN.

As for the VMware image, it has been updated with the newer version of make (so as to not get the warnings anymore) and svn has been installed.

[Mikerman]

Thanks, and I kinda thought I was jumping the gun a bit--but the SVN switch info. was posted on the opening Rockbox page and the Simple Guide to Compiling already included the references to SVN, so I thought, what the hay ...



Is there anything in re-running the Cygwin config. that is different from what is already listed?  http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CygwinInstallWithScreenShots  If there is, I won't trouble you now  (unless it's something simple and you don't mind), and will just wait for whatever guide--I'm sure you have better things to do--

[scorche]

Just make sure that you select a 1.4.x version of SVN to be installed in the packages section.

[tdtooke]

Is there a way I can simplify my life with a variable comparable to CVSROOT in SVN?  Typing 'svn://svn.rockbox.org...' every time seems tedious to me.  I know, I'm lazy, but..

[LinusN]

Every time?

You do it once when you check out, then you don't need it anymore.