Re: [Debconf-discuss] stuff from TimVideos project (low hanging fruit)

A couple of low hanging fruit that people could help with;

Hardware related;

* Packaging xc3sprog at http://xc3sprog.sourceforge.net/

* Updating the package for urjtag at https://packages.debian.org/jessie/urjtag

Video tools related to dvswitch;

* Updating packaging of gst-plugins-dvswitch - https://github.com/timvideos/gst-plugins-dvswitch

* Packaging of dvsource-v4l2-other - https://github.com/timvideos/dvsource-v4l2-other

Slightly harder;

* Packaging slidelint (python based tool) - https://github.com/timvideos/slidelint

I'm happy to help explain any issues or help fix problems you come across.

Tim 'mithro' Ansell

On 19 August 2015 at 14:31, Tim Ansell <mithro@mithis.com> wrote:

On 18 August 2015 at 20:25, Geert Stappers <stappers@stappers.it> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 04:50:14PM +0200, Tim Ansell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone had the time to help me figure out the correct
> way to package my TimVideos project components to get included in Debian? A
> list of things we are trying to package can be found at
> https://github.com/timvideos/streaming-system/wiki/Debian-Packaging.

Nice documentation. (Yes, that is a compliment :-)

I've been pointing debian developers at it for a while and most run away screaming I think :)

> I've never been very good at doing packaging myself and quite a few of the
> projects have complicated dependencies that I don't really know how to deal
> with.
>
> For example,
> * The fpgalink tool has a custom tool chain and needs to cross compile
> firmware for the 8051.
> * One project needs a gcc compiled with support for the lm32 processor.

Mmm, that sounds like a firmware package. I haven't done such thing before,
but this would be my approach: a package architecture 'all' with the blob
and in the Debian README the build instructions, the source in /usr/share

For the HDMI2USB there are two problems to be solved;

* Packages for end users who "just want to use the device".
* Packages to support developers of the firmware.

From what I can see, there are a couple of options for "end user packages" seem to be;

* Just package the prebuilt firmware (plus udev rules and stuff) into a debian package with instructions on where to get the source. This would be similar to how other binary blobs are supported like firmware-iwlwifi.
* Create a source package which actually builds the firmware. This I have NFI how to do and a lot of the dependencies don't seem to be packaged either. Fixing the packages to support developers of the firmware would actually make this type of packaging easier.

We'd also like packages which mean it is easier to set up the developer environment (We have a shell script which builds the setup environment on a Ubuntu system at https://github.com/timvideos/HDMI2USB-misoc-firmware/blob/master/scripts/get-env.sh ). For example;

* As far as I can see, a binutils / gcc with lm32 and or1k support isn't in Debian, so we end up compiling them from source. Do you know if it is possible to get this into Debian?
* Packaging libfpgalink is complicated by the fact the developer uses a custom build system.
* Packaging misoc + migen should be pretty easy as they are mostly just python packages. The only problem is that they move forward pretty quickly and don't really do releases.

Lastly, is there an equivalent of a "Ubuntu PPA" for Debian where we can experiment with packages before getting them into "Debian proper"?

> * How to deal with our port of flumotion to gstreamer 1.0 when upstream is
> "dead".
> Thanks for your help!

Thank you for the hdmi2usb project.

We definitely need contributors! Even if you don't know hardware there is plenty of things we need help getting done, from documentation, to setup scripts, to writing news posts and PR, to just even using the devices.

Tim 'mithro' Ansell
PS If you haven't seen, you can now sign up to be notified when the Numato Opsis, the first open hardware for the HDMI2USB project is available for purchase. http://bit.ly/get-opsis