Re: epoch for tss2 package
Hello Debora Babb,
On Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 11:04:35PM -0700, Debora Velarde Babb wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> The upstream package for tss2 has been renamed ibmtss. When the name
> was changed upstream, the version number convention also changed.
> Upstream tss2-1470 was updated to ibmtss-1.3.0. The current version of
> ibmtss is now 1.6.0. I believe I need to use an epoch number to handle
> the version change correctly.
Upstream renaming their project is one of the very few chances you get
to GET RID OF an epoch in a debian package!
>
> Initially I attempted to create the package with the new name ibmtss.
> There was some discussion on debian-mentors list and the response was
> that I should NOT change the name to ibmtss and instructed to instead
> use an epoch number.
This seems like very bad advice to me.
IMHO you should:
1. package the new project under the new name.
(i.e. rename both source and binary packages.)
2. Provide additional empty binary (transitional) packages under the old
name which depends on the respective new binary packages, so old
installations gets upgraded to the new package.
3. Use a debian/rules override to alter version number *only* for the
empty transitional packages, so that they get a higher version number
than was previously provided. eg. last-tss2-version+really1.3.0-1
eg.
override_dh_gencontrol:
# Make transitional packages have a higher version number
# than the old binary packages built from src:tss2 (1045-1.2)
dh_gencontrol --package=tss2 -- \
-v1045+really1.6.0-1
dh_gencontrol --package=libtss0 -- \
-v1045+really1.6.0-1
dh_gencontrol --package=libtss-dev -- \
-v1045+really1.6.0-1
# Use the correct version number for real binary packages
dh_gencontrol --remaining-packages
Once your transitional packages has shipped in a stable release,
you can then remove them from debian/control and also drop the
debian/rules override of dh_gencontrol in your next upload to unstable.
>
> I recently posted a packaging question to the debian-mentors list and
> someone kindly explained that use of an epoch number needed to be
> discussed on debian-devel first.
That's correct and the reason is to avoid unneccesarily introducing
epochs since they are so hard to get rid of (and confuse alot of users).
>
> Thank you,
> Debora Babb
Regards,
Andreas Henriksson
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