[Debian-med-packaging] Packaging CSB Toolbox

[Andreas Tille]

Hi,

I'd like to add some comments to some points.

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 10:46:48AM +0100, Laszlo Kajan wrote:
> 
>  * I can not decide for you if you should use your regular machine for packaging work (when you have 'unstable' on it). It can be unsafe, of
> course, installing new packages for testing. You have to decide if you take the risk. A chroot probably would not be a bad idea. It also depends
> of how much you trust the upstream.

Every package should be builded at least once in a chroot (pbuilder,
cowbuilder, sbuild) to make sure you got the Build-Depends right.
Regarding the final upload your sponsor will rebuild anyway in an
unstable chroot so it finally does not matter  that much what you are
using for test builds.

I personally like to avoid builds on my local machine if there are
complex Build-Depends which would otherwise simply bloat my local
machine with stuff I do not need otherwise.
 
>  * For ideas for convincing people about freeing up software: perhaps fellow Team Members can point you (us) to some page with good arguments -
> I am sure it exists. This also should be linked/included in the UpstreamAuthorsContacting page, I think. [1]

Having some kind of example Wiki page would be cool but I'm not
that sure it exists.  I remember that I wrote quite some of such
mails which might serve as examples and some search like

   site:lists.debian.org/debian-med "on behalf of the Debian Med"

should reveal these from the list archive because I used to use this
string in those mails.
 
>  * Packaging the CSB Toolbox - python framework for building applications in the domain of structural bioinformatics - seems like a good idea to
> me. Some of the dependencies seem to be listed here already [2]. This is Python software, so at one point we should involve the Python Modules
> Team as well [4]. Jakub Wilk of that team has been especially helpful.

+1
 
>    1: Pick up at [3]: file the WNPP-ITP bug. Then, once you are member of the Debian Med Team,

Tomás is. :-)

> create the repository directory (svn preferably,
> with mergeWithUpstream=1) on Alioth.

Just to be fair:  I'm fine with SVN but we have no explicite preference
of SVN over Git - I as a sponsor would adapt to the preference of the
sponsee.

> Have a look at the librcsb-core-wrapper, you may want to use this package as an example [5,6]. This also is
> a Python module, which is a wrapper for a C++ library. I think you could start by adapting this to the CSB Toolbox. Use debhelper (dh) as your
> packaging aid. I have tried CDBS as well, and chose dh in the end.

+1 for dh.  Here I would set a clear preference:  If the package is not
connected to R where a nifty cdbs extension exists there is no reason at
all to choose cdbs.  The main reason for this is the lack of good
documentation for cdbs and dh is on one hand very good documented by
manpages and on the other hand so simple that you finally do not need
any documentation once you have inspected one or two examples.

>    2: Once you have debian/{changelog,compat,control,copyright,rules,source/format(=3.0 (quilt)),watch}, you can use:
>       .
>       $ uscan --verbose --force-download --destdir ../tarballs/
>       .
>       to get the upstream, and get started with building. I recommend you use these config files:
> 
> ~/.quiltrc:
> QUILT_PATCH_OPTS="--reject-format=unified"
> QUILT_DIFF_ARGS="-p ab --no-timestamps --no-index --color=always"
> QUILT_REFRESH_ARGS="-p ab --no-timestamps --no-index"
> 
> ~/.lintianrc:
> color=always
> display-experimental=yes
> display-info=yes
> pedantic=yes
> show-overrides=yes
> 
> ~/.svn-buildpackage.conf:
> svn-lintian
> 
> ~/.dput.cf: (for later, when you are a DM)
> [DEFAULT]
> run_lintian		= 1
> 
> ~/.bashrc:
> export DEBEMAIL="Your GPG Signing Identity <with at your.email>"

The main points in this mail are described as well in the Debian Med
team policy document[8] which I would strongly recommend as a beginners
reading.  You might also need to read the hints about ssh access to
alioth (hint: if something fails, follow the link to the Wiki page
in the ssh paragraph.)
 
> Andreas Tille (in cc) regularly organizes the 'Mentoring of the Month' [7], where he teaches newcomers the details of packaging. I think it
> would be great if you became his student with this package. @Andreas: what say you?

Yep.  Considering there was no student in October I'm fine with starting
right now.

Kind regards

      Andreas.
 
> [1] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience/UpstreamAuthorsContactingQA
> [2] http://pypi.python.org/pypi/csb/1.0.0
> [3] http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/docs/policy.html#packaging
> [4] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/PythonModulesTeam
> [5] svn+ssh://tdido-guest@svn.debian.org/svn/debian-med/trunk/packages/rcsb-core-wrapper
> [6] http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debian-med/trunk/packages/rcsb-core-wrapper/
> [7] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM

[8] http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/docs/policy.html 

-- 
http://fam-tille.de