Re: [caffe] current status of packaging the deeplearning framework

[Ghislain Vaillant <ghisvail@gmail.com>]

On 07/08/15 04:18, lumin wrote:
> Hi Debian-Science folks,
>
> Few minutes ago I moved my packaging repo of caffe from my user repo
> to the alioth debian-science directory [1], since caffe is now an
> ITP package and there are potential co-maintainers.
>
> It takes so long time to make a complex package as my 2nd or 3rd
> Debian package, even so it's on going. And following is the summary:

I could not agree more. Please let us know if you need assistance in 
puting the package to shape. I'd be happy to help.

> Done before moving to debian-science
> ====================================
>
>   I fixed both Make and CMake build system for cpu-only mode caffe,
>   (added soname, fixed rpath issue). And the build result of cpu-only
>   mode caffe is good. the cpu-only caffe includes these packages:
>    * caffe
>    * libcaffe
>    * libcaffe-dev

Please consider the following changes:

 * suffix any binary packages dealing with the cpu backend with -cpum:
    - libcaffe -> libcaffe-cpu,
    - libcaffe-bdg -> libcaffe-cpu-dbg,
    - libcaffe-dev -> libcaffe-cpu-dev,
    - and so on...

 * append the so-version to the name of the binary packages providing 
shared objects. If no so-versioning is applied, use a 0:
    - libcaffe-cpu{SO-VERSION} or libcaffe-cpu0
    - libcaffe-cpu{SO-VERSION}-dbg or libcaffe-cpu0-dbg

That way package names are more explicit about their content (explicit 
is good from a user pov) and you can use the more general libcaffe / 
libcaffe-dev names as meta-package to provide all backends at once.

> What's next
> ===========
>
>   On my machine the cuda mode caffe suffers the NVCC (cuda) build
>   failure and I'm going to look into it. the cuda mode of caffe
>   is contained by these packages:
>    * caffe-cuda
>    * libcaffe-cuda
>    * libcaffe-cuda-dev

Please check above.

> Thanks.
>
> [1] http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-science/packages/caffe.git/

I had a quick check and was wondering why you chose *not* to use the 
CMake build system of caffe, unless I am mistaken?

The d/rules looks a bit convoluted and I would expect much simpler rules 
if cmake were used.

Good luck and keep up the good work,
Ghislain