Re: Package review and comment wanted
Bengt Thuree <bengt@thuree.com> schrieb:
> Hej
>
> I have just created one of my first debian package, and would like to
> have some comments on the actual packaging.
Did you read the new maintainers guide and the developers' reference?
>
> Have I missed something?
> I am very confused of
> *) Should I only use the rules file, or a separate Makefile
That depends on the complexity of the installation. In most cases, it is
highly advisable to have a separate Makefile that does the compilation
and installation, and in debian/rules you only call it with appropriate
targets and arguments.
Isn't there a Makefile in the upstream sources?
> *) Should I list all the directories in the dirs (including /usr/sbin)
In debian/dirs, you only list the directories that you want to create
with dh_installdirs - e.g. directories that the upstream Makefiles
assumes to be present upon installation, or directories to which you
want to move some files in your debian/rules file - a typical example
would be moving some scripts to
debian/tmp/usr/share/doc/$packagename/examples.
> *) Should I list the conffiles in a separate conffile?
That depends on the debhelper compatibility level. Usually it is not
necessary - read about it.
> *) How do I automatically set the version number and perhaps a
> timestamp in the program during packaging?
I don't quite understand what you mean with this. Are you speaking about
the output of your program when called with a "--version" option?
> My package can be fetched from www.thuree.com/debian/buppo or by
> simply have the following in the apt.sources
> deb http://www.thuree.com/debian buppo/
> deb-src http://www.thuree.com/debian buppo/
So it does have an upstream Makefile - use it.
You are packaging this as a Debian native package. You shouldn't do
that, unless there is good reason why nobody outside Debian would want
to use it. This is true for packages like debian-policy or apt-get (or
perhaps not even for that one), but most probably not for a backup
program. Consequently, you should use the manpages out of the debian
directory and install them in the Makefile.
You should probably look up what people mean with the difference between
differential and incremental backup; it seems as if you provide both
possibilities.
In the description you say that it uses afio and tar, but you don't
depend on tar.
The changelog entries are not really well understandable for somebody
who doesn't yet know what it's about.
The rules file could need some cleanup - not only removing unneeded
commented lines: Do you have an idea what a CFLAG is? Why do you set it?
I also had a short look over your buppo script. I don't like that you
hardcode all binaries with absolute pathnames. There is a reason why the
variable PATH exists, and why people use it to use different binaries. I
don't know whether it's against policy, but I'd consider it bad
practice.
I have no idea about the usefulness of the script, and no intention to
sponsor its upload, be it useful or not. I just wanted to give you some
feedback.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
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