Re: before building a debian package...
pe, 2008-12-12 kello 15:54 -0800, Maria Nelson kirjoitti:
> Before a program can be turned into a Debian package, it should be
> build-able with just the regular ./configure, make, make install
> sequence. Is that correct?
It is not actually necessary for the upstream build system to follow
that format. The reason Debian uses "debian/rules build" is so that we
can have an interface inside Debian that is standard for building a
package, and debian/rules can then do whatever it needs to invoke the
upstream build system.
So pretty much anything upstream wants you to do to build is OK, and
that's what you put into the "debian/rules build" target.
> Also, when you go to build a package, and it doesn't build, what are
> your options? Do you contact that upstream author? Is that actually a
> reasonable thing to do? Or do you actually try to debug it?
In an ideal world, the best way is to debug it yourself, develop a fix,
and send a patch to the author, while at the same time also patching the
package you are building. This way, the upstream author gets a bug fix
(and does not have to develop it themselves), and people get a Debian
package without having to wait for upstream to fix the problem.
In the real world, you can compromise on some of the things. Indeed,
sometimes it is not possible to reach upstream, or there is no good way
to fix a problem, so you have to work around it and there is no
reasonable patch you can give upstream. However, most of the time, the
world is ideal.
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