Re: Packaging questions (newbie)

[joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl (joost witteveen)]

> 
> I'd like to contribute some packages, but I'd like to ask some
> questions first:
> 
> 1. One of these packages is the replacement of `libX11.so'.  Do I have to make
> whole alternative version of appropriate standard X package or is there some
> way to make small "one-file-replacement" package?

One way of doing it is making your own directory, say,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/xczech
put your czech version of libX11.so in that dir, and, in the postinst
add the /usr/X11R6/lib/xczech to the front of /etc/ld.so.conf.
(and remove it again in the postrm).

This is the way it is done in Xaw3d, and seems to work reasonable well.

> 2. Some of these packages (like X fonts) would be related to ISO-8859-2 only
> and some of them (like Czech fonts and format files for TeX) are even
> interesting only for Czech speaking users.  It is probably not good idea to
> place Czech-only packages to the main tree.  Or it is?

Well, I think it is. There are the german man pages, and I think a
few non-english dictionaries in the main tree too. And, put it another
way, most of the main-tree is only of interest to the english-speaking
community -- why would we discriminate against czech?

Then again, I come from Europe to, and my first language isn't English
eighter.

Good luck with your packages!

-- 
joost witteveen
            joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl
          joostje@debian.org
--
Use Debian/GNU Linux!