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A new Debian package helper: debputy
I have made a new helper for producing Debian packages called debputy. Today, I uploaded it to Debian unstable for the first time. This enables others to migrate their package build using dh +debputy...
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wrap-and-sort with experimental support for comments in devscripts/2.22.2
In the devscripts package currently in Debian testing (2.22.2), wrap-and-sort has opt-in support for preserving comments in deb822 control files such as debian/control and debian/tests/control....
View ArticleImprovements to IntelliJ/PyCharm support for Debian packaging files
I have updated my debpkg plugin for IDEA (e.g. IntelliJ, PyCharm, Android Studios) to v0.0.8. Here are some of the changes since last time I wrote about the plugin. New file types supported .dsc (as a...
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Support for Debian packaging files in IDEA (IntelliJ/PyCharm)
I have been using the community editions of IntelliJ and PyCharm for a while now for Python or Perl projects. But it started to annoy me that for Debian packaging bits it would “revert” into a fancy...
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A decline in the use of hints in the release team
While we working the release, I had a look at how many hints we have deployed during buster like I did for wheezy a few years back. As it seemed we were using a lot fewer hints than previously and I...
View ArticleMaking debug symbols discoverable and fetchable
Michael wrote a few days ago about the experience of debugging programs on Debian. And he is certainly not the only one, who found it more difficult to find debug symbols on Linux systems in general....
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Improvements to apt-file since stretch
The list of changes for apt-file in buster is rather short, but I would still like to mention a few of them in this post. New list-indices command: In stretch, apt-file migrated to use apt’s new...
View Article“debhelper-compat (= 12)” is now released
A few days ago, we released debhelper/12 and yesterday uploaded it to stretch-backports (as debhelper/12~bpo9+1). We deliberately released debhelper/12 so it would be included in buster for the...
View ArticleBuster is headed for a long hard freeze
We are getting better and better accumulating RC bugs in testing. This is unfortunate because the length of the freeze is strongly correlated with the number of open RC bugs affecting testing. If you...
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Build system changes in debhelper
Since debhelper/11.2.1[1], we now support using cmake for configure and ninja for build + test as an alternative to cmake for configure and make for build + test. This change was proposed by Kyle...
View ArticlePrototyping a new packaging papercut fix – DRY for the debhelper compat level
Have you ever looked at packaging and felt it is a long exercise in repeating yourself? If you have, you are certainly not alone. You can find examples of this on the Debian mailing lists (among...
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Building packages without (fake)root
Turns out that it is surprisingly easy to build most packages without (fake)root. You just need to basic changes: A way to set ownership to “root:root” of paths when dpkg-deb –build constructs the...
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Introducing the debhelper buildlabel prototype for multi-building packages
For most packages, the “dh” short-hand rules (possibly with a few overrides) work great. It can often auto-detect the buildsystem and handle all the trivial parts. With one notably exception: What if...
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Improving bulk performance in debhelper
Since debhelper/10.3, there has been a number of performance related changes. The vast majority primarily improves bulk performance or only have visible effects at larger “input” sizes. Most visible...
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Approaching the exclusive “sub-minute” build time club
For the first time in at least two years (and probably even longer), debhelper with the 10.6.2 upload broke the 1 minute milestone for build time (by mere 2 seconds – look for “Build needed 00:00:58,...
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debhelper 10.5.1 now available in unstable
Earlier today, I uploaded debhelper version 10.5.1 to unstable. The following are some highlights compared to version 10.2.5: debhelper now supports the “meson+ninja” build system. Kudos to Michael...
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On making Britney smarter
Updating Britney often makes our life easier. Like: smooth-updates (winter 2011) Adam’s accidental upgrade of the original auto-hinter[1] (winter 2012) A non-leaking installability tester (winter 2013)...
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The stretch freeze is coming
The soft freeze has been on going for almost a month now and the full stretch freeze will start tomorrow night (UTC). It has definitely been visible in the number of unblock requests that we have...
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Piuparts integration in britney
As of today, britney now fetches reports from piuparts.debian.org and uses it as a part of her evaluation for package migration. As with her RC bug check, we are only preventing (known) regressions...
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Improvements in apt-file 3.1.2
Yesterday, I just uploaded apt-file 3.1.2 into unstable, which comes with a few things I would like to highlight. We fixed an issue where apt-file would not show top-level files in source packages....
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