Compiling all packages with debug information?

[Philipp Marek <philipp@marek.priv.at>]

Hello everybody!

[[ I already sent this mail to debian-user - but it didn't seem to get there.
   Thinking about it once again, I'm re-posting to -devel. ]]

As I'm running unstable I sometimes find bugs in applications. Now it would be 
very nice if there was some way to get the matching debug information for the 
packages, so gdb could print a better backtrace, or eg. show exactly which 
line segfaults.

Currently I'd have to recompile the packages myself, and installing them over 
the debian files - which is, depending on the package and its prerequisites, 
a major hazzle.


How about compiling all programs with debugging information, and strip them 
into a "-dbginfo" package, or something likewise for "apt-get source"? Like 
the "-dev" packages only people who think they need them would install them, 
perhaps in a new repository "dbginfo" (like unstable, or testing).

This would be a good help for determining the location of problems, and would 
not cost the debian maintainers much work.


Other/better ideas?


Regards,

Phil

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