Bug#868558: nmu: multiple r-* packages

[Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@debian.org>]

Hi Andreas,

On 10 August 2017 at 15:36, Andreas Beckmann wrote:
| On Sun, 6 Aug 2017 08:15:17 -0500 Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@debian.org> wrote:
| > Let's get these 46 packages rebuilt so that r-base 3.4.1 can migrate to
| > testing.
| 
| Disclaimer: I don't know anything about R or the R packaging.

No worries.
| 
| Isn't it possible to use some virtual r-abi-WHATEVER package(s) to make
| such transitions easier to spot and manage in the future? S.t. it can be
| described in a ben file instead of manually compiling a list of binNMUs.
| (Ideally such a thing should be in place before performing a "last
| round" of manual binNMUs).

Absolutely. We _have_ that now. [1]  The r-base-core package provides it, and
each package depends on it.  Witness:

   edd@bud:~$ apt-cache show r-base-core | grep Provides | head -1
   Provides: r-api-3, r-base-latex, r-cran-rcompgen, r-gnome
   edd@bud:~$ apt-cache show r-cran-digest | grep r-api-
   Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), r-base-core (>= 3.3.1-1), r-api-3
   edd@bud:~$ 

But the whole point of my bug report, and write up, is that

   46

out of 516 package need a rebuild.

So I continue to argue [2] that we should rebuild these 46, not force all 516.

Happy to discuss in detail in person in a video conf or call ...

Dirk


[1] Disclaimer: I resisted this a little, but it is the right thing to
do. And we *will* need it next spring when R 3.5.0 *will* bring ABI changes.

[2] http://eddelbuettel.github.io/rcppapt/binnmuAfterR340.html

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd@debian.org