Re: Upgrading to a new upstream maintainer version

[Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>]

> I've already packaged a deb of epkg but there's a new upstream maintainer
> version.
> Must I remake entirely the package or I have just to do anything that will
> keep the changelog... ?

If the changes upstream are relatively minor, you should be able to
get away with the following (assuming that the current Debian version
is 0.3.0-7 and that the new upstream version is 0.3.1; change the
numbers appropriately):

~/Work $ ls
epkg-0.3.0/
epkg_0.3.0.orig.tar.gz
epkg_0.3.1.orig.tar.gz
epkg_0.3.0-7.dsc
epkg_0.3.0-7.diff.gz
epkg_0.3.0-7_i386.deb

where the epkg_0.3.1.orig.tar.gz is the new upstream source which
conveniently unpacks into epkg-0.3.1/.

~/Work $ tar zxpvf epkg_0.3.1.orig.tar.gz    # to unpack the new
                                             # upstream version
~/Work $ cd epkg-0.3.1
~/Work $ zcat ../epkg_0.3.0.diff.gz | patch -p1

This patches the new source with the Debian diffs used for the last
version.  Then resolve any conflicts, and a "New upstream release"
type line to the changelog and try rebuilding the package.

This is automated by uupdate(1) in the devscripts package.  (I'd
recommend using the potato version, not the slink version.)

   Julian

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
        Debian GNU/Linux Developer,  see http://www.debian.org/~jdg