beginner's questions
Hello,
I am writing you because i want to help but i don't know how to start.
But before i move on to my questions let me say that at the moment i'm
mainly interested in sporadic bug fixing as package maintenance requires
a commitment that at the moment i am unable to offer.
I have read the new maintainers' guide, and i have glanced through the
debian policy. I do understand the process of creating a package from
scratch but i fail to get my head around of the steps required for
finding, and fixing bugs as well as submitting patches. Let me make my
question more specific.
1) Having found a bug report that i would like to work on
- Which is the source file i download? the orig or the dsc? the
debian one or the upstream one?
- Do i need to contact first the maintainer of the package that i
intend to work on some bug? (i guess i would know this if i have read
the debian policy more rigorously, i will do so)
2) Having obtained the source, before i start making my modifications
should i apply the existing patches appearing in diff.gz or should i
work directly on the original code?
3) Having done my changes do i need to prepare and submit a package
containing the new modified version? Even though i might not need to
offer a package do i need to make sure that the resulting code can be
properly packaged? Or do i simply submit the patch and the maintainers
worry about the rest? What is it more useful for the maintainer?
im looking forward to your replies.
many thanks, regards
--
-- Dionysis Kalofonos
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