Bug#773686: lintian falsely considers qt5-default a metapackage

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Control: tags -1 moreinfo

On 2014-12-22 03:46, Craig Small wrote:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 2.5.30+deb8u3
> Severity: normal
> 
> When trying to build a package using qt5, lintian complained
> E: build-depends-on-metapackage qt5-default
> 
> The problem is that qt5-default is NOT a metapackage and 
> packages that do not depend on this package will fail to 
> build in systems such as pbuilder.
> 
> The error you get without it is:
> qmake: could not find a Qt installation of ''
> 
> Leaving aside the awesomeness of that error message, it basically
> means qmake isn't sure what version of qt it should be. The
> package qt5-default removes qmake's confusion.
> 
> It tested this by trying to build my package in a  pbuilder, it
> failed. I then logged into the pbuilder and installed qt5-default.
> qmake was then able to work.
> 
> I'll put a lintian override in the meantime.
> 
> [...]

Hi,

The error message from qmake and lintian indeed leaves much to be
wanted.  However, the correct solution is to:

"""
qt5-default

Instead of Build-Depending on qt5-default, replace it with qtbase5-dev.

You need to export QT_SELECT=qt5 in debian/rules.

If you build it manually and if your build system is qmake, please
invoke qmake with the -qt5 first argument. If you use CMake, it should
be picked up without further changes.
"""
(source: https://wiki.debian.org/Lintian/Tags/depends-on-metapackage)

~Niels