Re: Debian etch - Rebuilding a package from source.
On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 12:40:05AM EST, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> On Thursday 01 January 2009, Chris Jones <cjns1989@gmail.com> wrote
> about 'Re: Debian etch - Rebuilding a package from source.':
> >On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 11:16:46PM EST, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> >> On Wednesday 2008 December 31 18:45:26 Chris Jones wrote:
> >> > What I have done so far is pretty much what is described in the
> >> > above:
> >> >
> >> > . apt-get source ..
>
> You might also look at apt-src.
aargh .. another one ..
:-)
I followed your advice & took it out for a test drive but it looks like
it's a bit "higher level" that apt-get source in a sense.. and may as a
result require a better understanding of the debian system. IOW, it
appears to do some extra stuff whose meaning and implications are not
clear to me at this point.
> >> > . build-dep ..
> >> > . debuild ..
> >> > . dpkg -i ..
I found by trial and error .. and a bit of serendipity / poking around
that I was missing a couple of steps and an iteration.
One step that's missing from the above is running debclean .. if you
don't get it quite right first time around, that is.. or change your
configure options, for instance..
For something a little less trivial one may have to iterate a number of
times the {fix error(s) - debclean - debuild - dpkg -i - test} cycle.
As I understand it, I need a debclean (or a debchange) in my loop in
order to have the ensuing debuild take my changes into account.. in
this particular scenario I don't think I should have been creating new
versions since all I was changing was fixing typos.
[..]
> That may be the case. I do not currently have any experience with
> debian-live, so I couldn't usefully comment.
As you stated below, learning to build packages is a means to an end at
this point.
But then, when I am bored with debian-live, hopefully I'll have learned
some more generally useful stuff.
> >> If packaging is just a means to an end, skip the pbuilder for now.
> >> However, if you want to make high-quality package that might be
> >> accepted into Debian, a pbuilder environment is a must.
> >What would the tradeoff be? Is it a matter of a steeper learning
> >curve? Does it require more resources such as disk-space?
> Yes, a bit steeper, mainly just because you'll be adding yet another
> tool to your toolbox.
> Yes, you'll need enough persistent disk-space for a base Debian system
> that will reside (possibly compressed) in /var/cache/pbuilder. During
> the build, the chroot will grow as it will be uncompressed, if
> compressed, and download and install all the Build-Depends and of
> course there is the build process itself. You'll need enough disk
> space for this processes, but after the build is complete most of this
> disk space will be reclaimed. What is not reclaimed is the downloaded
> package files which will be put into /var/cache/pbuilder/aptcache so
> that later pbuilder invocations will not have to re-download those
> packages.
Also sounds like another "resource" that pbuilder may require is a
somewhat bigger chunk of my personal time.
Thank you gentlemen for helping me get started with debian packaging!
CJ
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