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Bug#436419: Policy or best practices for debug packages?



On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 08:08 -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> There doesn't seem to be anything in policy about debug packages, are
> there any wiki pages or best practices documents about what are the best
> ways to create debug packages?

There was some discussion around #436419, seeking to add some Policy in
this area:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/04/msg00663.html

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/04/msg00692.html

> Some of the questions I have are:
> 
> *) I assume that the priority of -dbg packages is extra

As advised by lintian and enacted by ftp-masters.

> 
> *) What section should -dbg packages be placed into?  Should it be the
>    section that the parent package is in, or something like "devel"?

Library -dbg packages will almost inevitably end up in lib. Personally,
I think that's right.

> 
> *) Do we dump everything into /usr/lib/debug, i.e.,
>    /usr/lib/debug/sbin/e2fsck?   Or should we put it in
>    /usr/lib/debug/<pkg>, i.e., /usr/lib/debug/e2fsprogs/sbin/e2fsck?
>    Most packages I've seen seem to be doing the former.

/usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/libqof.so.2.0.0

I don't see why a package directory would be useful there but the real
question is:

*) The current usage is /usr/lib/debug/ - if we change that, would the
tools using -dbg packages be able to find the symbols?

> 
> *) Is it OK to include the -dbg information in a library's -dev package?
>  Or should it be separated out?  Otherwise as more and more packages
>  start creating -dbg packages, the number of packages we have in the
>  debian archive could grow significantly.

This was covered in the original discussion - a separate section of the
archive is a better solution. Not everyone who needs the -dev needs the
-dbg - e.g. the autobuilders do *not* need -dbg symbols for
build-dependencies.

> 
> *) Red Hat includes source files in their debuginfo files, which means
>  that their support people can take a core file and get instant feedback
>  as to the line in the source where the crash happened.  But that also
>  means that their debuginfo packages are so huge they don't get included
>  on any DVD's, but have to be downloaded from somebody's home directory
>  at redhat.com.  (which appears not to be published, but which is very
>  easy to google for.  :-)   What do we want to do?

Combine apt-get install foo-dbg with apt-get source foo ? Isn't it up to
the debugging tool to correlate one with the other, rather than the
distro?


-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/


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