Re: Questions before my first upload attempt

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

thanks for the answers. They helped me to achieve progress.


So i really had to pass the can-he-install-sid-? test.

I already began installing yesterday evening.
It is instructive, but i would have preferred to postpone
the qemu adventures until i explore passthrough of DVD drives.

How about publicly available accounts on a sid machine,
where programmers like me can test building of their packages ?

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining because i have no
other fun in life.
I report this because i believe to see an important reason
why Debian packages of software like mine are outdated.
 

Christian Kastner wrote:
> $ sudo vmdebootstrap \

A link to an example like this should augment the sportive
statement
  "[...], built against a current version of sid.
   This simple sentence hides a multitude of sins -- it can be
   a complex process."
in
  https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#How_do_I_make_my_first_package.3F

I think Debian loses potential packagers after they read it
as it is now. Not every programmer is an enthusiastic sysadmin.

Well, i seem to have achieved it the hard way.
But if i ever have to do it again, i will gladly try your
proposal.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I read
  https://wiki.debian.org/InstallFAQ
and experienced:

- Any senseful combination of
    {i386 mini.iso, amd64 mini.iso}
    x {qemu-system-i386 , qemu-system-x86_64}
    x {-cdrom , -hda}
  is broken currently. xorriso is not to blame. El Torito
  boot record and MBR properly lead to isolinux.bin which
  gets stuck after its startup message. Famous last words
  are "ETCD" or "EHDD", depending on -cdrom or -hda.

- debian-8.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso by default installs a
  kind of tablet PC desktop with no visible means to get
  a shell prompt. (I made the mistake to accept the pre-
  selected package collection.)
  I had to boot into rescue mode and zap
  /etc/X11/default-display-manager in order to get at least
  a kernel console after normal boot. (Thx Google.)
  The console goes black after a few minutes so that i cannot
  see the user input prompts, but have to watch the host
  performance meters to know when it is time to press Enter.

  This way i managed to apt-get dist-upgrade to testing.
  One upgrade step more needed to get to sid.
  When the proposal about vmdebootstrap arrived, i decided
  to go on with what i already started.

  But that i did via SSH. (Praise Google for showing all the
  cries for help and the rescue efforts of brave fellow users.)
  Now i have:
    # uname -a
    Linux ts6-sid 4.1.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.1.3-1 (2015-08-03) x86_64 GNU/Linux
  Cannot really tell whether this is sid. I did my best, at least.
  /etc/apt/sources.list currently has these two active lines

    deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
    deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ unstable main

  Anything more to add there ?

---------------------------------------------------------------


> and inside the VM, adapt to your liking.

(Back to stable ? ~:o))


> You only want to sign the final result of your packaging efforts;
> signing every intermediate result of the development process is
> unnecessary and annoying, hence the -us -uc.

So "signing" in this context means "no -us -uc".
Thanks for clarifying this.


> By the way, in that case, you should retitle the respective bug reports
> from O for "orphaned" to ITA for "intent to adopt".

How to do this ?
(I see few risk that anybody would take care of the packages
 in the next days.)


Back to the work of packaging:

Do i get it right that i should do
  apt-get dist-upgrade
every time before i begin to package something ?


Have a nice day :)

Thomas