Re: Wine

[Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net>]

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On 03/16/07 02:06, Joe Hart wrote:
> Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 10:58:10PM +0100, Joe Hart wrote:
>>> According to Wine HQ, there are no packages for Debian, only Ubuntu

Currently, WineHQ is at v0.9.32 & Unstable is v0.9.30

$ wajig policy wine
wine:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.9.30-1
  Version table:
     0.9.30-1 0
        500 ftp://mirrors.kernel.org unstable/main Packages


>>> because the maintainer only runs Ubuntu.  The packages are not
>>> compatible with Debian because "Debian changed the package format",
>>> which means you either need to compile the source or use the package on
>>> one of the Debian mirrors, which is usually a bit behind the packages on
>>> Wine HQ.
>>>
>> That is just plain ignorance on the part of the person who made that
>> statement.  The package format has not changed.  It would be stupid for
>> Ubuntu to do something like that, since all package management tools
>> (apt, dpkg, etc) would need updating to deal with a new format.
> 
> 
> To quote http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb
> 
> Packages here are designed to function on Ubuntu Edgy (6.10) and Dapper
> (6.06). Packages here used to also work for Debian unstable, however due
> to changes in Debian this no longer works and our Ubuntu maintainer is
> unable to support them. If you can help provide up-to-date Debian
> packages, please contact Scott Ritchie.

Who's Scott Ritchie?  The DD is Ove Kaaven <ovek@arcticnet.no>.

>> The problem is more with dependencies than with anything else.  As I
>> said, the format is the same.  Complaining that an Ubuntu .deb package
>> doesn't work on Debian is like complaining that an Etch .deb doesn't
>> work on Sarge.  Over time, as things diverge, it is more likely that
>> packages won't fit across branches.  The same is true with Debian and
>> Ubuntu.
> 
>> Now, it is really not hard to build package for both Ubuntu and Debian.
>> In fact, it is no harder than building packages for Sid and Sarge.
>> Tools like sbuild, pbuilder and chroot can be used to great advantage
>> here.  I hear that there are some Debian developers whose primary/only
>> real platform is Ubuntu and that they package using pbuilder chroots.
>> Generally, this is considered bad practice for a Debian developer since
>> that means that the package received no testing on Debian, but it can be
>> done.

Or if you run Sarge or Testing, grab the unstable deb-src and
compile away...

>> So, to sum it up, the reason that some upstream developers provide
>> Ubuntu but not Debian packages is because they either don't know about
>> tools like pbuilder or are just lazy.
> 
> I fully agree.  Now we just need to convince Mr. Richie of that.  His
> e-mail address is:  mailto:scott@open-vote.org
> 
> I don't think we'll get very far, and I am not the one to do it, since I
> am not experienced enough with properly building Debian packages that I
> can engage in a technical discussion about it.
> 
> I misquoted the first time, it doesn't say the package has changed, it
> said Debian changed.
> 
> Registerd Linux user #443289 at http://counter.li.org/
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