Multiple gtk-1.1.*-dev packages (Re: dbuild running automatically on potato source tre)

[Raja R Harinath <harinath@cs.umn.edu>]

Ben Gertzfield <che@debian.org> writes:
[snip] 
> To make matters worse, many of the packages in potato now depend on
> DIFFERENT versions of the libgtk1.1.*-dev package to build. It's
> extremely frustrating for me, but there is no solution other than
> forbidding packages that cannot build with different versions of
> gtk+ 1.1.
> 
> Since I am the GTK+/GLib package maintainer, and I can't come up with
> a good solution to this, I don't think there will be one. :(

One useful thing may be _not_ to have separate libgtk1.1.*-dev
packages to match libgtk1.1.*.  

My suggestion would be to have just one `libgtk1.1-dev' package but
various `libgtk1.1.*' packages.  Thus, for gtk 1.1.16, have

        libgtk1.1-dev 1.1.16    Development package
                depends on libgtk1.1.16
        libgtk1.1.16            Shared library

When gtk+ 1.1.17 comes along, have

        libgtk1.1-dev 1.1.17    Development package
                depends on libgtk1.1.17
        libgtk1.1.17            Shared library

Since most of the gtk+ upgrades are source compatible, most packages
depending on gtk+ probably just need a recompile whenever
libgtk1.1-dev is updated.  This is much easier, IMHO than tracking
when a new libgtk1.1.* was released, searching for the associated -dev
package, and selecting it manually for installation.  

As an added benefit, the new libgtk1.1.* is automatically chosen for
installation by dselect when libgtk1.1 is updated.

Third, it removes an `ldconfig' warning when, say

        libgtk1.1.10-dev is installed
        libgtk1.1.10     is _not_ installed
        libgtk1.1.11     is installed

- Hari
-- 
Raja R Harinath ------------------------------ harinath@cs.umn.edu
"When all else fails, read the instructions."      -- Cahn's Axiom
"Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing."   -- Roy L Ash