Imminent Checker upgrade release

[Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu>]

	I know that a good number of you out there use my Checker
package to debug your programs.  I am about to release (within a week,
probably) a significantly upgraded Checker 0.8, which includes the
following features (at least):

     * Libraries fully recompiled from upstream sources, including
            - glibc 2.0.3
            - libg++ 2.7.2
            - ncurses 1.9.9g
            - readline 2.0
	    - gdbm 1.7.3
            - gmp 2.0.2
     * GNU gas 2.8, the newest version, as replacement assembler.
     * Description of how Checker and glibc were ported to Debian.

The package is going to be quite large, likely 5MB compressed, because
of all the libraries.  Thus, since I don't want to upload it very
often, I'm now asking for feature requests.  Send 'em in!

(I actually had to install an extra hard drive in order to build this
package.  It takes over 200MB of hard disk space to build--is that a
record?)

Another point: how are we supposed to handle it when there are *lots*
of upstream sources?  With the Checker package there are 13MB of
upstream sources with just the above libraries, and an additional
1-2MB for the sources of Checker itself.  I absolutely refuse to
upload a 15MB source package, it would tie up my net connection 24
hrs/day for an entire weekend.  With this in view, is it acceptable to
just require the appropriate sources to have been downloaded already
by the person compiling the package?  I can write (and have written)
debian/rules so that it automatically applies the necessary patches.

Should I use upstream sources or upstream sources + Debian diffs?

For those who have no idea whatsoever what Checker is, here is my
description from debian/control:

 Drop-in addition to `gcc' that allows programmers to find most
 memory-related bugs easily.  Checker automatically finds:
 
     * null pointer dereferences (read, write, and execute accesses)
     * writes to read-only memory
     * accesses to free blocks (read, write, and execute)
     * reads/writes to uninitialized bytes (in automatic and dynamic memory)
     * reads/writes to "red zones" (in automatic and dynamic memory)
     * reads/writes/executes outside memory segments
     * free called with address not obtained from malloc
     * free an already freed block
     * ...and many more!
 
 Checker's main disadvantage is that it causes the program to run many
 times slower.  You can compile your program to use Checker by using
 the command `checkergcc' in place of `gcc'.  Please do read the
 documentation, it contains some important information.
-- 
Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu> 12167 Airport Rd, DeWitt MI 48820, USA
*Note*: New PGP key available at http://www.msu.edu/user/pfaffben/pgp.html


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