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Re: Creating a debian package for a port, from a modified existing Debian package



Thanks a lot for your reply!

Neil Williams schreef:
On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:11:23 +0100
Sjors Gielen <mailinglist@dazjorz.com> wrote:

I'm working on a Debian port to Cygwin called Debian GNU/kCygwin.

(I'm surprised you think it's worth it, the hardware can run Debian
without needing a port so why complicate things by keeping Windows
around?)

I've got two main reasons: (1) This is a pet project to get to know Debian and the Debian process a lot better, and (2) Cygwin is an API translator and as such something like a kernel emulator, and there is a sufficiently large user base to see people do want to run Linux or GNU tools on a Linux kernel (emulator) while keeping Windows around. I ran across an existing project which didn't work out because they were using Cygwin 1.5; Cygwin 1.7 has most of the Windows-Unix compatibility "bugs" fixed, so it's possible now.

[snip]
1. When I modify source, I should bump the version number, i.e. add "cygwin1" at the end of the version set?

Yes. That seems a bit long though - you are correct to use a [a-z][0-9]
format, just wondering if it should be [a-z]{2-3}[0-9].

cyg[1-9] it is then :-)
    ^ I saw you write em1 everywhere, so I assume that's recommended?

[snip]
3. Should I put my (source and build) patches in debian/patches? If so, is there policy on the naming, e.g. 100_cygwin_buildfix or so? What if there is no debian/patches directory? (does this have something to do with quilt?)

No, you cannot use debian/patches if you patch debian/rules because
debian/rules is executed *BEFORE* the patches are applied. You need
completely external patches, as used in Emdebian.

[also]
> It modifies the source package too, updating the .diff.gz or .tar.gz
> for a native package.

[and]
> The changes you make will appear in .diff.gz and are applied that way.

So when I retrieve a Debian source package, make a lot of changes to it, then run dpkg-buildpackage succesfully, I have in the root directory some .debs, maybe some .changes, a modified .diff.gz and a modified .tar.gz for my -cyg1 (or similar) version, and probably a .dsc.

This .diff.gz now contains all patches between the original version from "upstream upstream" (so the real upstream, not Debian), and the current ported version; that's all patches by the Debian maintainer and all patches by me, right? If that's the case: What does your wrapper do? Why doesn't dpkg-source do the job correctly when it applies the .diff.gz?

I responded on @devel.

Ah right, I see you did, but that's what I meant with "nobody actually responded with an action I should take" ;-)

> There is nothing you can do about this. Accept
it. Maintainers are in complete control of their own packages and if a
maintainer thinks that your patch is irrelevant, unimportant or simply
a nuisance, there's little you can do because cygwin just isn't
sufficiently important to Debian as-a-whole for anyone else to care.

Yeah, I see that. I'll just keep all my patches in a seperate directory.

Thanks again!
Sjors


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