Bug#733578: hwinfo/21.0-1 needs updates / FTBFS of libx86emu

[Tomasz Buchert <tomasz.buchert@inria.fr>]

On 29/01/14 02:34, Sebastien Badia wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 02:46:33AM (+0100), Johann Felix Soden wrote:
> > Hi Sebastien, hi Tomasz,
> > 
> > I have not yet completely reviewed hwinfo 21.0-1, but
> > there is at least one thing which needs to be fixed:
> 
> Hi Johann,
> 

Hi Seb, Hi Johann, 

> Thanks for your time and this review!
> 
> >  - debian/libhd21.symbols is incomplete on i386. A fixed version is 
> >    attached.
> > 
> > And I found trailing whitespaces in old debian/changelog entries and
> > debian/libhd-doc.doc-base.
> 
> The master branch is up-to-date according your comments, thanks !
> 

Yes, Sebastien did a great job recently on hwinfo. :)

> > Since related, here some comments about libx86emu:
> > 
> > At the moment, it FTBFS on some architectures [mips, mipsel,
> > powerpc, ...] because of missing sys/io.h.
> > As the new hwinfo depends on it, this restricts the architectures where
> > it will be available. So this should be fixed before hwinfo is uploaded
> > - for example by fixing libx86emu itself or by reducing the dependency
> > to the architectures where it is really available.
> 
> Hum, and it's not a missing dependency to libc6-dev ? (I'm maybe wrong)

Yeah, seems to me as well. I'll try to test it out.

> 
> > Actually, the libx86 package contains a copy of libx86emu
> > and has therefore similar problems [1,2]. Please contact Anibal Monsalve
> > Salazar (anibal@debian.org) who maintains it. Especially for the
> > security team, it would be nice, if it could use the new libx86emu
> > package instead of including its own copy.
> 
> Contacted :-)

Actually, we discussed this with Anibal and developer of lix86emu
packaged by us (Steffen Winterfeldt) some time ago. libx86emu is not
a *copy*, but a *fork* and a quite diverging one, for that matter.
The relevant copy of the discussion:

(...)

I'm seriously confused what "libx86emu" really is. I found 3 possibilities:
    
    (1) libx86emu here https://gitorious.org/x86emu/
    (2) libx86emu in xorg-server: http://sources.debian.net/src/xorg-server/2:1.14.3-5/hw/xfree86/x86emu
    (3) libx86emu in libx86

The first commit in git history of (1) is taken directly from version 0.99-1 of (3) in Debian.
Then, I think, it started to diverge to the point that it is far from being compatible.
http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/libx86/ mentions that libx86emu is "now maintained as part of
the X.org distribution." and "What needs to be done? Update lrmi to the latest code".

Therefore it seems to me that we have the following "provenance tree"
(time goes to the right):

           libx86emu in Xorg --------> current version in Xorg
                   |     
                   |
                   |
                   | 
                libx86 (version from 2006, but ---------*-------------> current version in Debian (1.1)
                   probably merged with Xorg            |
                   version two times)                   |
                                                        |
                                                        |
                                                        |
                                                    gitorious libx86emu
                                                    branched from version 0.99-1    --------> version 1.4
                                                    in Debian (may have been
                                                    merged ocasionally with
                                                    "upstreams", can't tell)


> 
> Thanks a lot,
> 
> Seb
> 
> -- 
> Sebastien Badia

Cheers,
Tomasz