Re: Deb structure - general question

[Arto Astala <arto.astala@ntc.nokia.com>]

I don't know either. Did he mention any system where
matters are better? Had he any more specific comments?
Did he mean source packages or binary packages or both?

Here are some guesses, however:

- the (source) package does not document the required
  environment to make package building repeatable

  this is a recognized problem, some of the discussion
  may be found in archives under 'source dependencies'
  but it is not tackled now, since other problems are
  perceived as more pressing

- there is no 'standard' way to transform any sources
  into a Debian package

  this is true, not only has one to make sure that the
  package conforms to Debian standards but usually one
  has to alter the original sources in various ways that
  require considerable professional judgment, I don't
  see any way around this in foreseeable future

- specification of build process is intimately tied into
  original sources

  IMHO, there is no way around this (see above), since
  this is heavily dependent of structure of original
  sources

- specification of package construction is procedural,
  describing steps taken instead of more declarative info

  since this can not be done for a majority of sw out
  there it, by definition, can not be done in here

- the specification is distributed as a part of source
  package

  this is a technical detail which is making things easier,
  not more difficult (I don't believe he meant this)

I hope my guesses were from more relevant to irrelevant,
and were not wildly off the mark.

t.aa


Raul Miller wrote:
> 
> Ryszard Lach <siaco@id.pl> wrote:
> > I was on Linux Conference in Warsaw (Oct '98), and there Tomasz
> > Kloczko said, that in deb specification of packet building is not
> > clearly separated from sources, and this could be a problem in the
> > future in maintainig plenty of packets. Could someone explain it to
> > me?
> 
> I think he's referring to the nature of debian/rules.
> 
> To compile the program, you perform debian/rules build
> 
> To build the package, you perform debian/rules binary
> 
> I'm not sure what issue he's trying to address, however.