Re: Problems with PDF creation
On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 12:28:15PM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 10:17:20AM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> >> Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Wait, there is less than 70MB of PDF. Yes, this is true. Due to
> >> > difficulties of making nice PDF out of XML/SGML without hitting FTBFS,
> >> > many packages does not bother PDF creation. Most of the doc containing
> >> > PDF are:
> >>
> >> Can you please be more specific about "difficulties ... nice ... FTBFS"?
> >> There have been some problems when teTeX 3.0 was uploaded to sid after
> >> sarge's release, but that was a one-time problem (and the central
> >> packages like debiandoc-smgl, linuxdoc etc. were fixed quite fast;
> >> db2latex was harder). Do you imply that people stopped generating PDF
> >> files last summer/autumn because of these problems?
> >
> > That pretty much it.
>
> And which packages are affected?
Sorry, I can not be specific. That is my old memory. Let's move on. :)
> >> Or are there other
> >> problems I am not aware of?
> >
> > doc-debian used to loop 6 times to build PDF.
>
> If a LaTeX document is complex, this can be in fact needed (although
> I've never seen anything needing more than 4 repetitions). It could
> also be a problem of the build system. In any case it has nothing to do
> with the fact that the sourceis xml/sgml, except maybe that there might
> be suboptimal converters involved.
>
> > Many Debiandoc packages
> > did not contain PDF for cjk.
>
> cjk is still a problem, that's right. I hope I'll be able to sponsor an
> upload of latex-cjk soon.
Please. I did few minor NMU to get it to etch. I thought Anthony Fok
is back in action.
> > New build script is much more stable.
>
> Sorry, which build script are you talking about? doc-debian's?
That what I meant. we fixed it by updating debiandoc-sgml. Anyway,
that was non-trivial work for SGML DOC maintainer without LaTeX
knowledge.
> Then
> how is this a problem for generating PDF from xml/sgml sources?
That is history now. The point is if you think about building PDF from
source, you are pulling huge amount of packages. That is major
headache.
I think people scream when GCC upgrades and cough on some programs.
Similar situation is what might have happened with DOC package and TeX.
I think TeX is maintained well in par with GCC. But Debian release
cycle is mostly dictated by Kernel/GCC/glibc/X/gtk/gnome/Qt/... So
current policy not to be FTBFS even for DOC package is tough one. (I
think we need to have reasonable exceptions for DOC package. If it
build with previous "stable" release, it should be allowed to be
published.
I know current effort of moving developer-reference to XML is only for
HTML and plain text. There seem to be issues with building PDF from
UTF-8. Talk to W. Borgert" <debacle@debian.org> on this subject.
> > I know some package build PDF first as upstream.
>
> Sorry, I don't understand what you want to say.
I saw sometime ago, some package had non-PDF source, and PDF file as a
part of source. Then build of the source package just moved PDF to
binary package.
> > I fupdown does not come with documentation.
>
> ? It does contain documentation in form of example text files. If
> that's not enough, that's a problem of content, not of the format, isn't
> it?
Look into the source package and run "make ifupdown.pdf" (yep you need few
more dependancy application installed like "dia". )
> Regards, Frank
Osamu
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