Re: Bits from the Lintian maintainers

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

On 2011-08-16 11:04, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Aug 2011, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
> 
>>> (Checking backported packages with the positively ancient
>>> lintian in lenny is a PITA.)
>>
>>  So why not use lintian from lenny-backports or squeeze-backports then?
> 
> Their set of checks does not match the “base distribution”,
> for example, although I don’t remember whether that was for
> etch or lenny, the newer lintian wants to add a dependency
> on dpkg >= something | install-info, which isn’t appropriate
> (satisfiable without backporting either of them) for the old
> “base distribution”.
> 
> Also, a vendor profile could take backports-specific checks
> (like version numbering, suite naming, that these two match)
> and warn people to keep the diff small (e.g. not lower the
> Standards-Version). It could even not warn about unused over-
> rides so backporters need not drop the overrides from the
> package in testing for their backports, if they no longer
> apply (but add some of their own, if needed).
> 
> Just curious,
> //mirabilos

Hi,

Personally I see no problem in carrying a backports profile and
(possibly) backport specific checks in Lintian.  In fact, since I am
breaking some internal API/ABIs every now and then, the checks (if any)
should probably go into Lintian for now.

For a backport profile, I basically just need a name for it (e.g.
debian/squeeze-backports), the set of tags to be used ("all debian tags
except $set" works perfectly) and the blessing of the backport team for
both.

You can experiment with a personal profile by doing something like[1]:

 $ mkdir -p ~/.lintian/profiles/local
 $ cat <<EOF > ~/.lintian/profiles/local/lenny-bp-test.profile
 Profile: local/lenny-bp-test
 Extends: debian
 Disable-Tags: missing-dependency-on-install-info,
               out-of-date-standards-version,
               ancient-standards-version
 EOF
 $ lintian --profile local/lenny-bp-test path/to/some/backport.$pkg

For backport tests, you can use "Enable-Tags-From-Check: $check[, ...]",
but you have to include the checks in $LINTIAN_ROOT (normally
/usr/share/lintian[2]) for Lintian to pick it up.

~Niels

[1] The full information is available in lintian(1) and
  /usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/
  - or -
  /usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.txt.gz

[2] I can recommend cloning the lintian git repository, reading
doc/README.developers (e.g. perldoc doc/README.developers) on how to run
lintian from git and then start hacking in a branch based of 2.5.2.
  Especially compared to the "older" alternative of copying
/usr/share/lintian and then hacking away there.