Re: Proposal: Fixing non-free content issues via installer packages

[Jon Dowland <lists@alcopop.org>]

At 1154011140 past the epoch, Goneri Le Bouder wrote:
> >> ...and install useless dependency.
> > Do you mean fakeroot and dpkg-buildpackage etc. in Depends:
> > for users?
> Yes, for standard users this is useless.

I tried to avoid it with my package. What I did was build
the end-user .deb files during the packager's build process,
but using dummy files in place of the files that would
eventually be used. The make-jpkg equivalent then
"slipstreamed" the correct files into the .deb files:

                ar x "$DEB"
                mkdir -p $DATADIR
                tar xzf data.tar.gz
                mv -f "$IWAD" ./$DATADIR
                tar cf data.tar ./usr
                gzip -1f data.tar
                ar r "$DEB" data.tar.gz

This approach works, but could use some refinement (e.g. the
Installed-Size: header reports the wrong figure), and of
course in my case I'm only having to do this for one file,
more complex directory structures might not be feasible.

Also I did this before the repositories were signed, I
expect apt would complain about mismatched or missing
signatures.

-- 
Jon Dowland
http://alcopop.org/