From: aph Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 05:23:55 +0000 (+0000) Subject: - Ch "Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools": X-Git-Url: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~ianmdlvl/git?a=commitdiff_plain;h=8219bde1988be32e9c0af39d9add1d93dd49c65a;p=developers-reference.git - Ch "Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools": - improve the intro - debconf-doc mentioned for debconf - debhelper: don't talk about debmake; mention how to get info on the dh-* pkgs - dput: new section, closes: #129378 - debootstrap: new section, closes: #129377 - other minor wording changes git-svn-id: svn://anonscm.debian.org/ddp/manuals/trunk/developers-reference@1541 313b444b-1b9f-4f58-a734-7bb04f332e8d --- diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog index 04e9565..293f6c8 100644 --- a/debian/changelog +++ b/debian/changelog @@ -8,9 +8,15 @@ developers-reference (2.10.1) unstable; urgency=low anymore; closes: #135559 - also talk about dput a tiny bit * Adam Di Carlo: - - Charles Briscoe-Smith deprecates yada (I think new maintainers of - that would be welcome) - - not done: talk about dput and debootstrap in Ch 12 + - Ch "Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools": + - improve the intro + - Charles Briscoe-Smith deprecates yada (I think new maintainers of + that would be welcome) + - debconf-doc mentioned for debconf + - debhelper: don't talk about debmake; mention how to get info on the dh-* pkgs + - dput: new section, closes: #129378 + - debootstrap: new section, closes: #129377 + - other minor wording changes -- Adam Di Carlo Fri, 5 Apr 2002 16:07:34 -0500 diff --git a/developers-reference.sgml b/developers-reference.sgml index 8aa163c..ee56b8d 100644 --- a/developers-reference.sgml +++ b/developers-reference.sgml @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ %commondata; - + @@ -2100,8 +2100,12 @@ Application Managers"> at the Debian web site. Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools

This section contains a rough overview of the tools available to -maintainers. These tools are meant to help convenience developers and -free their time for critical tasks. +maintainers. The following is by no means complete or definitive, but +just a guide to some of the more popular tools. +

+Debian maintainer tools are meant to help convenience developers and +free their time for critical tasks. As Larry Wall says, there's more +than one way to do it.

Some people prefer to use high-level package maintenance tools and some do not. Debian is officially agnostic on this issue; any tool @@ -2112,7 +2116,8 @@ endorse any particular tool to the exclusion of a competing tool.

Most of the descriptions of these packages come from the actual package descriptions themselves. Further information can be found in -the package documentation itself. +the package documentation itself. You can also see more info with the +command apt-cache show package_name. @@ -2140,14 +2145,18 @@ id="upload-checking"> and .

debconf provides a consistent interface to configuring packages interactively. It is user interface -intedependant, allowing end-users to configure packages with a +independant, allowing end-users to configure packages with a text-only interface, an HTML interface, or a dialog interface. New interfaces can be added modularly.

+You can find documentation for this package in the +debconf-doc package. +

Many feel that this system should be used for all packages requiring interactive configuration. debconf is not currently required by Debian Policy, however, that may change in the future. +

@@ -2159,10 +2168,14 @@ building binary Debian packages. Programs are included to install various files into your package, compress files, fix file permissions, integrate your package with the Debian menu system.

-Unlike debmake, debhelper is -broken into several small, granular commands which act in a consistent -manner. As such, it allows a greater granularity of control than -debmake. +Unlike some approaches, debhelper is broken into +several small, granular commands which act in a consistent manner. As +such, it allows a greater granularity of control than some of the +other "debian/rules tools". +

+There are a number of little debhelper add-on +packages, too transient to document. You can see the list of most of +them by doing apt-cache search ^dh-. @@ -2181,6 +2194,7 @@ The consensus is that debmake is now deprecated in favor of debhelper. However, it's not a bug to use debmake. + yada

@@ -2194,7 +2208,6 @@ by it's own maintainer, Charles Briscoe-Smith. As such, it can be considered deprecated. - equivs

@@ -2229,14 +2242,40 @@ to send mail about the upload of a package. You can configure it for new upload locations or methods. + + dput +

+The dput package and script does much the same +thing as dupload, but in a different way. It has +some features over dupload, such as the ability to +check the GnuPG signature and checksums before uploading, and the +possibility of running dinstall in dry-run mode after the +upload. + + fakeroot

fakeroot simulates root privileges. This enables you to build packages without being root (packages usually want to install files with root ownership). If you have -fakeroot installed, you can say, i.e., -dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot as a user. +fakeroot installed, you can build packages as a +user: dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot. + + + + debootstrap +

+The debootstrap package and script allows you to +"bootstrap" a Debian base system into any part of your filesystem. +By "base system", we mean the bare minimum of packages required to +operate and install the rest of the system. +

+Having a system link this can be useful in many ways. For instance, +you can chroot into it if you want to test your build +depends. Or, you can test how your package behaves when installed +into a bare base system. + @@ -2244,10 +2283,10 @@ install files with root ownership). If you have

devscripts is a package containing a few wrappers and tools which you may find helpful for maintaining your Debian -packages. Example scripts include debchange, which will -manipulate your debian/changelog file from the -command-line, and debuild, which is a wrapper around -dpkg-buildpackage. +packages. Example scripts include debchange and +dch, which manipulate your debian/changelog +file from the command-line, and debuild, which is a +wrapper around dpkg-buildpackage. @@ -2255,7 +2294,10 @@ command-line, and debuild, which is a wrapper around

debget is a package containing a convenient script which can be helpful in downloading files from the Debian archive. -You can use it to download source packages, for instance. +You can use it to download source packages, for instance (although +apt-get source package does pretty much the same +thing). +