On 11-06-04 at 11:29am, Russ Allbery wrote: > "Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org> writes: > > * Benjamin Drung <bdrung@debian.org> [110604 14:22]: > > >> It's better to build the pre-generated files from source in case > >> you need to modify the source. It's easier to just modify for > >> example configure.ac instead of modifying it and figuring out how > >> to rebuild the pre-generated files, especially when you do security > >> fixes or stable release updates. > > > Changing configure.ac does not really sound like a very minimal > > change to me. > > It often is, though. For example, I've modified several configure.ac > files to just add a pattern for GNU Hurd to the pattern for Linux that > controls some behavior that also works on the Hurd. It's about a > seven character change. > > I still use the upstream's generated files most of the time because > it's less complex. But I'm increasingly liking the idea of packaging > an upstream release tag from a Git repository instead, at which point > it's nice and clean to run the autotools during the build. The only > thing that I still don't like about that is that it means the Debian > packaging is based on a generated tarball that doesn't have any direct > relationship with the tarball that upstream distributes. Interesting. I used to avoid that approach without reflecting much on why - just doing because early on in my life of Debian Maintainer I was taught "it is bad to override upstream-provided autotools". But you are right - it makes good sense to do sometimes. What I do is use upstream provided tarballs, then put aside autotools-generated files, then autogenerate myself, and in the clean rule put back the upstream-provided files (because I want not only minimal required build routines idempotent but also building with git-buildpackage). Putting aside and restoring is doable in only a few careful lines in the rules file. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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