Re: source packages
I originally asked about why with the Debian system, I have to
download three files, instead of just one, to get a source package.
After my question had been answered--- that the reason is so that
maintainers do not have to upload source tar files more than once, and
so that mirrors do not have to transfer them every time a minor patch
is made --- I could see the wisdom of the 3 file format.
It's not really all that inconvenient. I use `ncftp` as my ftp
client, and, when I download a package, I utilize the bash-style TAB
completion it offers to build a glob pattern. It then gets all of the
files associated with a package, and drops them where I'm standing.
After exiting from the ftp client, I can then just type `dpkg-source
-x filename-version.dsc` and it creates the directory. Not bad.
I think Jim Pick has some ideas for ways to handle sources that do
not follow the simple one-tar-file format, and that there are issues
concerning multiple diffs??? (I will re-read this thread after
lunch.)
* sometimes files get lost. I cannot find the .dsc for sendmail on
any of the ftp sites I tried.
* If you ftp using Netscrape, it will pipe the diff through gunzip,
and `dpkg-source` will fail. If you then try and gzip the diff, it
will probably still fail because the MD5 checksum will not be the same
as the copy on the site. You end up 'just' using `ncftp`.
--
Karl M. Hegbloom <karlheg@inetarena.com>
http://www.inetarena.com/~karlheg
Portland, OR USA
Debian GNU 1.2 Linux 2.1.36 AMD K5 PR-133
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