Re: My first packages -- some questions.

[Kirk Hilliard <kirk@ghoti.com>]

Hi Guys!

I've put my packages back together without debmake helper scripts, and
I feel much more confidant now that I know what is going on.  A big
help was Igor Grobman's unfinished work, the "Debian Programmers
Manual"

  http://www.pics.com/~igor/debian/programmer.html/index.html

which contained this execution tree:

  dpkg-buildpackage
      dpkg-parsechangelog
      rules clean
      dpkg-source
      rules build
      rules binary
          dpkg-shlibdeps
          dpkg-gencontrol
          dpkg-deb 
      dpkg-genchanges

[Igor, I swapped ``dpkg-source'' and ``rules clean'' and added ``rules
build'' here.]

Igor said that this was an old project that he never finished and that
better things were being written now.  I'm sure that I haven't managed
to track down all the new-maintainer documentation out there, but
Igor's document contained a lot of useful information I had not seen
elsewhere (such as this execution tree) that seemed to fill the niche
between the "Debian Packaging Manual" and the several packaging
tutorials which lean toward debmake/debstd.

Manoj's sample rules files helped a lot too.  I like their style, and
I borrowed a lot from them.  He offered to email them to those who
wanted wished.  To help cut down on his email load, I would be happy
to forward them to anyone who asks. The uuencoded file is about 230k.

Here a just a couple of more questions.

1. For the elisp-manual package (this is the info version of the 700
   page 2 volume manual available from FSF) I changed Section/Priority
   from editors/extra to doc/optional.  (This is appropriate isn't
   it?)  This shows up in the *.changes file (both on the md5sum lines
   and as a changelog entry ) -- is that all I need to do?  The
   package was removed from hamm a couple of weeks ago (since it was
   in old source format) so I don't think that I need do anything else
   to get it out of its old section.

2. The elisp-manual package is funny in that the upstream package
   comes with pre-built info and dvi files in addition to the Texinfo
   source.  (The README does not mention this, but it is not just a
   fluke of this version as previous versions also did this.)  What is
   weird about version 2.4.2 is that the pre-built info files (but not
   the dvi file) is build from a different version of the source --
   version 2.4b.  The difference between versions 2.4b and 2.4.2 is
   slight, consisting of the rewording of a dozen and a half
   sentences.  (The pre-built info files were also build with a much
   older version of makeinfo, which also changes their format.)

   Anyhow, to avoid messing with the pre-built info files, I built the
   ones for the Debian package in a subdirectory debian/build-info.
   Is that cool?  (It works, I'm just wondering how appropriate it is.)

3. I originally planned to ask someone to review my packages before I
   uploaded them, but I do feel much more confidant now.  I have
   uploaded them to my home directory on master: /debian/home/kirk

     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian     2948  elisp-manual_19-2.4.2-1.diff.gz
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian      648  elisp-manual_19-2.4.2-1.dsc
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian   555204  elisp-manual_19-2.4.2-1_all.deb
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian     1201  elisp-manual_19-2.4.2-1_i386.changes
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian  1937099  elisp-manual_19-2.4.2.orig.tar.gz
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian     2277  emacs-lisp-intro_1.05-1.diff.gz
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian      651  emacs-lisp-intro_1.05-1.dsc
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian   195668  emacs-lisp-intro_1.05-1_all.deb
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian     1146  emacs-lisp-intro_1.05-1_i386.changes
     -rw-r--r-- 1 kirk Debian   190408  emacs-lisp-intro_1.05.orig.tar.gz

   Although I don't feel the need for someone to check them out
   anymore, I would certainly still appreciate it if some chose to
   take the time to do so.

4. I'll move them over to Incoming late this evening if nothing bad
   turns up before then.  I know that new upload policy is being
   discussed (and I did use the ``Closes: Bug#'' syntax), but my
   understanding is that I still need to close the bugs and mail the
   .changes file to debian-devel-changes myself.  I assume that I
   should do the latter as soon as I move them to Incoming and the
   former after they have been installed in the hamm tree.  Right?

Thanks again to the help.  I have heard this expressed before, and it
was certainly true for me; the packaging process seems rather
confusing at first, but it is actually quite easy once you figure
things out.  (Yeah, yeah, I know that these were two really simple
packages -- no executables, only info files -- but now I am ready for
more something more complicated.)

Kirk Hilliard