Re: Checking out the source repo on case-insensitive file systems

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Thu, 2025-09-25 at 20:48:47 -0700, Ulysses Zhan wrote:
> Some time ago, maintainers of nixpkgs found that in the source repo
> of dpkg, there are two files, namely |scripts/t/Dpkg_BuildTree.t|
> and |scripts/t/dpkg_buildtree.t|, which have the same path other
> than capitalizations. This makes it hard to check out the source
> codes on case-insensitive file systems, so workarounds and patches
> are needed to compile dpkg on those systems. I think it would be a
> good idea to change the filenames so that they can be regarded as
> different paths on case-insensitive file systems.

In principle case-insensitive filesystems are not supported by dpkg,
because they (can) create hidden aliasing issues which dpkg will then
be unaware of and might lead to data corruption. See
<https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/FAQ#Q:_What_are_the_filesystem_requirements_by_dpkg.3F>.

And while changing those filenames could be done, I guess it's a way
to automatically trip over on such unsupported systems (although
perhaps in a non-obvious way). Should probably also add a configure
check.

Out of curiosity, what systems are those affected? macOS perhaps?

Thanks,
Guillem