Bug#545381: edos-builddebcheck: Always consider built-essential packages installable

[Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:06:17PM +0100, Ralf Treinen wrote:
> 
> We are currently preparing a new release of the underlying library
> and the tools that are using them (this will be the dose3 library).
> This will happen in the next weeks, and that new version will have
> a native edos-builddebcheck (without need of a python wrapper). The
> new library will allow us to realise much more easily manipulations
> on the package universe.
> 
> Anyway, we will have to decide what exactly we will implement. The
> current proposal (after discussion with zack) is the following:
> 
> - we construct a set BE as follows: at the start it only contains the
>   package "build-essential". Then we extend the set by any package from
>   the Packages file that build-essential directly or indirectly depends on.
>   For calculating BE we would also follow through alternatives, that is if
>   a build-essential package depends on a|b we would both include a and b in
>   that set.
> - For each package in the set BE we set its list of conflicts to the
>   empty list.
> 
> This would mean that all build-essential packages and all their (in)direct
> dependencies *that are present in the Packages file* would be assumed to
> be always installable. This would probably give some false positives
> (indicating packages as buildable when in reality they are not) but that
> seems acceptable. 
> 
> However, if for instance a build-essential package does depend on a package
> p that does not exist in the Packages file than we wouldn't assume p to
> be installable. Is that OK?

I don't see a problem with it.

There has also been a change on ftp-master's side that it keeps
the arch all package around of old versions until the arch any
package of the arch is uploaded.  I think this also fixes our
problem, or atleast a big part of it.  There is just one small
problem with that, and that is the the special Packages file
for the buildds is one with all arches in it.  We merge it with
the Packages file for the arch.

I'm wondering if we can't be smarter about merging those 2 files.
It currently only keeps the newest version of all packages, and I
wonder if it's a problem if we just concatenate them.

The commit log shows:
commit 9f9abf7546c8e4a5b4af7daa58b2bbc72964e90c
Author: Joachim Breitner <nomeata@debian.org>
Date:   Wed Jul 29 16:06:57 2009 +0200

    Use keep-latest in trigger.often

    This makes sure the Packages and Sources as passed to wanna-build do not
    contain old entries, so that they are not passed to edos-debcheck. They
    would not be considered by apt on the buildds for installation anyways.

And I'm not so sure about that anymore.


Kurt