This is one of the changes sought by Emdebian to support using Debian on embedded devices where storage space is far from cheap and involves running counter to the current Debian default of "install everything that works, every time, every package". http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/11/msg00116.html nodocs, nocheck/notest need to be formalised and implemented across Debian in a standard, consistent manner that reproducibly supports the same changes to each package no matter what build system is used. There needs to be some agreement on what nocheck or notest means and which one to use. For Emdebian needs, whichever name is used, the imperative is that setting that DEB_BUILD_OPTION *must* completely prevent the execution of any compiled program within any test suite provided by upstream. The only checks or tests that can be implemented outside nocheck|notest must only use system binaries from coreutils, binutils-multiarch or one of the gcc binaries. nocheck | notest should also be supported whether or not the package is actually being cross-built. emdebuild currently passes 'nocheck' as part of the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS for all Emdebian builds. As far as nodocs is concerned, it should be straightforward - no package documentation either in the arch dependent binaries or the -doc, -data or -common packages. In this context, I believe "package documentation" should mean: "All files in the package that are installed beneath /usr/share/doc which are not mandated by Policy." Therefore, copyright and changelogs are excluded as are manpage and info pages but README, TODO, AUTHORS and all HTML/SGML/XML files whether explicitly loaded via scrollkeeper/yelp etc or not are included. A separate method will be developed later to deal with removing manpages, infopages, lintian and linda files and other miscellaneous files only from Emdebian packages so that the Debian package still complies with Policy and lintian etc. I propose to file bugs against packages that use inconsistent DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS or which do not support DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS that would actually benefit Emdebian. As with the other mass bug filing from this set, I will tag the reports 'crossbuilt' and file as wishlist. However, I would like feedback on whether DEB_BUILD_OPTION support should be handled in Policy so that packages *must* support the use of all relevant options in a consistent manner. Maybe lintian could also include a check along the lines of: package-includes-docs-without-supporting-nodocs and package-runs-make-check-without-supporting-nocheck If this seems like a good idea to others, I'll file the relevant wishlist bugs against lintian and Policy. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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