Re: Debian packaging

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 11:48 +0200, Christian Holm Christensen wrote:
> Hi Richardo,
>
> On Thu, 2005-07-07 at 13:13 -0400, Ricardo Yanez wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have myself been packaging ROOT for Debian in my spare time.
>
> A question. You do know that you can make Debian and RPM packages
> directly from the a CVS checkout or tar-ball, right? All you need to
> do, is
>
> make debian
> make redhat
>
> If you don't like the way it's done via the Makefile, you can always do
> it `in-directly', like
>
> build/package/lib/makedebdir.sh
> fakeroot debian/rules debian/control
>
> these commands will set up the `debian' directory.
>
> >From what I can tell from your diff file, it seems that you are aware of
> this, but you for some reason chose to go in a different direction. Why
> is that?
>

> I'd like to discourage this kind of dual effort. If you have some
> problem with the way it's currently done, please write me (as I'm the
> one that does most of this packaging stuff in the first place) or
> possibly the list, and we can discuss it. The ROOT team is quite
> willing to make reasonable modifications to advance system integration.
>

Basically, you want to turn everything "on", that is, compile and package with all available support. If I want, say, Python support, I would anyway have to configure and compile the old-fashioned way. The makedebdir.sh script, although pretty elegant, gives you a generic ROOT compilation. Why not have a full featured debian directory in the source tree instead, that fully complies with Debian Policy?

>
> > Regarding the poll mentioned by Rene Brun, my comment is that one would
> > generally like to have a package for it's own distribution.
>
> I second that. However, some computer centers may want to have one
> installation for an entire cluster, or may need various versions of ROOT
> for the whole cluster (dare I mention a shared ALICE/ATLAS tier 1 -
> ALICE wants a new ROOT - ATLAS wants ROOT version X.YY.ZZ - a mess).
> These people will not benefit from packages, and should use the
> tar-balls. Packages are mainly for stand-alone systems, and very
> heterogeneous systems.

People's needs are various, that I grant. A small group, say a couple of postdocs and students, may prefer a packaged version. In fact, this is the reason why I started packaging and distributing ROOT internally.

>
> > It eases
> > upgrades and makes the system more consistent.
>
> You said it!
>
> > Needless to say, I prefer
> > a well maintained Debian package than the tar-ball (hence I packaged
> > ROOT for Debian). I guess that remark applies to all distributions.
> >
> > If anybody wants to use this Debian packaging, please feel free to do
> > so. You can find it in,
> >
> > deb http://ftp.cl.debian.org/apt-repository unstable root
> > deb-src http://ftp.cl.debian.org/apt-repostory unstable root
> > deb ftp://ftp.cl.debian.org/apt-repository unstable root
> > deb-src ftp://ftp.cl.debian.org/apt-repository unstable root
>
> I think you should use the normal ROOT Debian packaging stuff at this
> repository, to not confuse things too much. Anyway, good to see that
> you are willing to put the packages out there (even though the license
> technically forbids it :-)
>

What do you mean? The source is intact, as required by Debian, except that I have removed the Microsoft TT fonts, freetype and afterimage tarballs and force-compiled with the versions distributed by Debian. The debian directory in created on the fly with the help of the diff file when you apt-get the source. If you don't want this, you can download the source the normal way and use the makedebdir.sh.

Cheers,
Ricardo Received on Tue Jul 12 2005 - 14:26:58 MEST