Re: beginner's questions
<posted & mailed>
Dionysis Kalofonos wrote:
> 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.
Bug fixing is important. So you would be doing the Debian project a huge
help.
> 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?
apt-get source package-name
If you are reading the bug report in the debian BTS then you need to
download Debian's source. Since the problem could be Debian specific and
nothing to do with upstream (ex:- packaging related issues). You will be
sending patches to Debian BTS in this case.
If the problem is not specific to Debian (ex:- bug in the code, segfaults,
run time errors etc.,) then also you can download source from Debian. But
the problem is most likely in the upstream's source code. The patches can
be sent to BTS and can also be forwarded to upstream (although the
maintainer would do this anyway).
> - Do i need to contact first the maintainer of the package that i
> intend to work on some bug?
The ultimate idea is not to have two people working on the same issue. If
you think reporting to maintainer would help him work on something else,
then go ahead and contact him.
But for trivial problems (ex:- modifying dependencies on a package to solve
an FTBFS bug etc.,), you can just send in the patch directly.
>
> 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?
apply the diff.gz
>
> 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?
maintainers would definitely prefer patches. No need to send the whole
package. You can send the patch to the bug report directly. The maintainers
receive all those emails.
hth
raju
--
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/
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