On 2019-05-27.12:27, Jonas Meurer wrote: > Unfortunately I don't have *links* either, but when introducing people > into the world of Debian packaging recently, I always got the impression > that they were heavily overwhelmed by the complexity of the Debian > ecosystem.
As a recently promoted DM, this was definitely my experience. It's taken me years to become somewhat competent at building packages. > Depending on the software you packages, doing the initial packaging > already requires a lot of knowledge about library handling, doc build > systems, makefiles, the filesystem hierarchy standard, language-specific > toolchains, etc. > > To properly build the package you have to learn either sbuild or > pbuilder. Which involves understanding and creating chroots/VMs/... You also have to even know that sbuild and pbuilder are options, how those relate to all the other tools like debuild, pdebuild, dpkg-buildpackage etc.. > For proper version controlling, things like git-buildpackage (and/or > dgit) and the "3.0 (quilt)" format need to be understood. This is also not at all obvious for a newcomer. > And for testing, you need to learn about piuparts, autopkgtest, as well > as again chroots and/or containers for local testing. For a long time I didn't use piuparts or autopkgtest due to barely being aware that they existed. And don't forget the dozens of useful devscripts like wrap-and-sort that it seems not all packagers know about. > That's a very high bar for entering the world of Debian packaging. > > My opinion is that more uniformity in packaging practices will bring a > bit more simplicity as well. Therefore I applaud Sam's initiative to > require DH whereever it's sensible. Absolutely. This is an incremental change to simplify one corner of the sprawling Debian packaging ecosystem. I hope it's just the first of many recommendations for a "happy path" to Debian packaging nirvana. > I think that Debian would gain a lot if the vast majority of packages > were packaged using DH and development would happen in Git on Salsa > using a common Git format. I agree that there should be exceptions. Agreed. -- Regards, Scott Leggett.
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