Transitions

A transition is the process required to manage a change in a library in sid which requires rebuilding of programs linked against it. To ensure that testing remains installable during this process, migration of both the library and dependent packages is done in a managed way:

• the library is first uploaded to sid with a new binary package representing the new library API/ABI
• packages depending on the old library are rebuilt against the new ABI, or sourceful uploads are made to update programs for an incompatible API change
• the library and rebuilt packages are allowed to migrate to testing as they become eligible
• the old library packages are cleaned up from sid and testing when they are no more reverse dependencies on them

A number of tools are maintained by the Release Team to make this process easier to manage.

Transition tracker

Auto-hinter