blog/archive/2024/04/04.rss

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
   2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/'>
   3         <channel>
   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from April 2024</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from April 2024</description>
   6                 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Time to move orphaned Debian packages to git</title>
  11                 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_move_orphaned_Debian_packages_to_git.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_move_orphaned_Debian_packages_to_git.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 09:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;There are several packages in Debian without a associated git
  15 repository with the packaging history.  This is unfortunate and it
  16 would be nice if more of these would do so.  Quote a lot of these are
  17 without a maintainer, ie listed as maintained by the
  18 &#39;&lt;a href=&quot;https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=packages%40qa.debian.org&quot;&gt;Debian
  19 QA Group&lt;/a&gt;&#39; place holder.  In fact, 438 packages have this property
  20 according to UDD (&lt;tt&gt;SELECT source FROM sources WHERE release = &#39;sid&#39;
  21 AND (vcs_url ilike &#39;%anonscm.debian.org%&#39; OR vcs_browser ilike
  22 &#39;%anonscm.debian.org%&#39; or vcs_url IS NULL OR vcs_browser IS NULL) AND
  23 maintainer ilike &#39;%packages@qa.debian.org%&#39;;&lt;/tt&gt;).  Such packages can
  24 be updated without much coordination by any Debian developer, as they
  25 are considered orphaned.&lt;/p&gt;
  26
  27 &lt;p&gt;To try to improve the situation and reduce the number of packages
  28 without associated git repository, I started a few days ago to search
  29 out candiates and provide them with a git repository under the
  30 &#39;debian&#39; collaborative Salsa project.  I started with the packages
  31 pointing to obsolete Alioth git repositories, and am now working my
  32 way across the ones completely without git references.  In addition to
  33 updating the Vcs-* debian/control fields, I try to update
  34 Standards-Version, debhelper compat level, simplify d/rules, switch to
  35 Rules-Requires-Root: no and fix lintian issues reported.  I only
  36 implement those that are trivial to fix, to avoid spending too much
  37 time on each orphaned package.  So far my experience is that it take
  38 aproximately 20 minutes to convert a package without any git
  39 references, and a lot more for packages with existing git repositories
  40 incompatible with git-buildpackages.&lt;/p&gt;
  41
  42 &lt;p&gt;So far I have converted 10 packages, and I will keep going until I
  43 run out of steam.  As should be clear from the numbers, there is
  44 enough packages remaining for more people to do the same without
  45 stepping on each others toes.  I find it useful to start by searching
  46 for a git repo already on salsa, as I find that some times a git repo
  47 has already been created, but no new version is uploaded to Debian
  48 yet.  In those cases I start with the existing git repository.  I
  49 convert to the git-buildpackage+pristine-tar workflow, and ensure a
  50 debian/gbp.conf file with &quot;pristine-tar=True&quot; is added early, to avoid
  51 uploading a orig.tar.gz with the wrong checksum by mistake.  Did that
  52 three times in the begin before I remembered my mistake.&lt;/p&gt;
  53
  54 &lt;p&gt;So, if you are a Debian Developer and got some spare time, perhaps
  55 considering migrating some orphaned packages to git?&lt;/p&gt;
  56
  57 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  58 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  59 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  60 </description>
  61         </item>
  62
  63         </channel>
  64 </rss>