Re: choosing a Debian Package to learn to package

[Meike Reichle <meike@debian.org>]

Hi Maria

> I am new to this forum and to Debian. 

Welcome to the list!

> One project I've successfully built
> recently is VLC. I am now trying to learn how to package Debian
> packages. I am having trouble getting started, namely, choosing a
> package to adopt/maintain,
> and am hoping that any of you might give me some guidance.
> 
> When I go to Debian's site, http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ , I cannot
> find any up-for-adoption or orphaned packages that I am familiar with.
> From various postings (people who currently maintain a Debian package),
> I get the impression that I am only supposed to package programs that I
> use on a regular basis. Since my experience with Debian is pretty
> limited (I mainly use Iceweasel, VLC, GIMP and Audacity...), I am having
> trouble finding a program that is both orphans and that I know very well.
> 
> Any suggestion on how I can go about picking a package to learn to package?

First off I don't think using a package regularly is a prerequisite for
maintaining it. It certainly helps and gives you a better feedback on
its quality but there are also a lot of special interest packages that
people just maintain because someone else needs them. (I'd count at
least one of my packages among them.)

For starters and for getting some initial packaging experience I'd
recommend you to join a maintenance team. In Debian there are lots of
team-maintained packages and many of these teams are really good
learning grounds. http://www.debian.org/devel/people lists a lot of the
teams we currently have. I am not a member of any maintenance team
myself so I cannot give recommendations on any particular team, but I
think some of the others on this list are in such teams and might be
able to give you more specific recommendations.

We (D-W) also have a mentoring program that might be able to support you
in your early packaging endeavours. It's currently kind of dormant, but
I think if you asked on-list we could also find you a mentor who could
have a look at your packages and give you some helpful hints.
Finally there's also the general debian-mentors list
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors) which does basically the same
but Debian-wide.

Best regards,
Meike


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