Re: How Debian Packaging practices could apply to VistA maintenance and distribution
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 06:13:36PM -0500, Bhaskar, K.S wrote:
>
> [KSB] Are there packages that are (for example) pure shell scripts
> so that there is no difference between a source package and a binary
> package? A VistA Debian package would be like that.
There are packages containing pure HTML pages (some doc packages) and
some packages might contain only some shell script (I do not know
examples but nothing in policy does forbid this.) There is *always* a
difference between a (Debian!) source package and a (Debian!) binary
package. A source package consists of a *.dsc *plus* *.orig.tar.gz (as
minimum, in most cases the diff for the packaging is kept in a separate
archive). The resulting binary package(s) is(are) a (set of) *.deb
packages(s).
If you unpack the source package you just see what is provided in the
original source tarball plus the packaging. If you unpack a *.deb (well
theoretically you can do it into your local dir and file browsers like
mc can show the file structure) will show the directory layout which is
used on the target machine - so it is basically what you get when you
say "make install". If the install target of the source in question
does not change the files (like for instance a source with pure shell
scripts) the *.deb file just carries the very same files. I wonder why
you could imagine that a deb package should change the code of a plain
script if it is just ready as it is.
> The best way to think of a VistA Debian package is one that creates
> VistA environments, just as you would if you had a Debian package
> that created virtual machines.
OK.
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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