Re: Fik question about Debian source packages
On Sun, Nov 10, 2002 at 03:22:52AM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 02:39:17 +0000, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>
> wrote:
> >On Thu, Nov 07, 2002 at 02:08:49AM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> >> Compiled v4.2 of X today.
> >
> >I'm wondering why you don't just use the Debian source package ...
>
> I took your advice; I tried to get the Debian source package for
> Mozilla today. I went to
> http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_packages and searched
> for mozilla... loads of results... looked through for something with
> "src" in the name somewhere... nothing. Trying to search the package
> contents online via a browser is really painful. I ended up
> downloading mozilla_1.0.0.orig.tar.gz plus the diff and the dsc. Is
> this really what one does?
Read the FAQ:
http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html#s-sourcepkgs
http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html#s-sourcebuild
Yes, you downloaded the right files.
> Please: what is the convention for Debian package names by which I may
> distinguish a source package?
The source package is called, er, whatever the source package is called.
It's only the file types that differ. You're probably being confused by
memories of source RPMs, which are different.
'apt-get source mozilla' is much simpler.
> Also I'm scared of it. I initially tried the lazy way out by
> downloading the Mozilla binary .deb and 'dpkg -i'ing it. This gave me
> a "dependency nightmare". I downloaded:
>
> apt
> console-common
> console-data
> debconf
> dpkg
> e2fsprogs
> kbd
> libc6
> libglib1.2
> libgtk1.2
> libgtk1.2-common
> libncurses
> libnspr
> libstdc++
> mount
> perl-base
> slang1
> sysvinit
> util-linux
> zlib1g
>
> before giving up in disgust.
Why don't you just use apt-get rather than reinventing the wheel by
hand? It really isn't difficult to get it up and running; use apt-setup.
If you do decide to retrieve packages by hand, you're expected to be
able to track the dependencies yourself, but by doing so you are
completely missing out on a significant part of the ease of Debian
package management. Don't put yourself through pain when you don't have
to.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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