Re: unifont - consensus on dependencies
Quoth unifoundry@unifoundry.com, on 2008-06-22 12:04:53 -0700:
> Is it best to add "Build-Depends: xfonts-utils" even if all a package
> needs from xfont-utils is bdftopcf?
If you need bdftopcf to build, and bdftopcf is in xfonts-utils, I
don't see another way to do it than Build-Depending on xfonts-utils
unless you want to look for alternative tools or something.
> I am aware of the /usr/share/fonts/truetype directory. I've been
> running Sarge, and it is there. However, that is not under the X11
> fonts tree. If I place a font in /usr/share/fonts/truetype, is it still
> legitimate to claim a font as being in section "main/x11"?
If not, then there's a big pile of ttf-* packages in sid that have
incorrect packaging. Since the Policy Manual is silent on this, I'd
expect that to be the correct place to install TrueType fonts from a
package in the x11 section, though I can't find authoritative
documentation to that effect from a cursory search.
> I could conceivably create multiple packages, for example:
>
> - the TrueType font (most people will probably just want this and
> nothing else); this could be called "unifont-ttf"
>
> - All sources to build the unifont.hex, TrueType, PCF, and BDF
> versions of the font; this package could be called "unifont"
De facto practice in the archive suggests that the TrueType package be
called "ttf-unifont", the PCF-only package be called "xfonts-unifont",
and the source package be called "unifont" (noting that the source
package and built package namespaces are somewhat orthogonal to each
other).
> I could have the "unifont" package contain the pre-built TrueType font
> plus all sources. It takes about an hour plus 1 Gigabyte of virtual
> memory to build the TrueType version with FontForge.
Normally you don't provide sources in built packages unless there's a
specific reason for it, as far as I know. Users can get sources using
[apt-get source] or similar to retrieve the source packages.
I'm not sure what effect a highly-intensive build process like that
has on the autobuilder network; presumably that can be answered by
someone more knowledgeable than me, but it's something you'd want to
consider.
> In that case there wouldn't be a Build-Depends for "bdftopcf".
(Note that there is no way to Build-Depend on "bdftopcf", because
that's not a package nor a Provides that I see anywhere. You once
again mean "xfonts-utils", I suppose.)
> I put work into getting the combining characters working properly
> (with zero width) in the TrueType version. The BDF version doesn't
> have that capability, and so neither would a PCF version.
That would be useful information for the package descriptions; that
doesn't preclude packaging both versions. I would tend to default to
packaging both versions, assuming they come from the same source,
unless there's a good reason not to package the PCF version. How
large are the PCF files? (I didn't see that information in your last
message; if it was there, I apologize.) Is there a significant
difference in the _source_ size if you reduce it to only the
information needed to build the TrueType fonts, or is most of the
information shared? I would tend to imagine the latter for a package
of this nature.
> Paul Hardy
> unifoundry@unifoundry.com
> GPG Key ID: E6E6E390
---> Drake Wilson
Reply to: