[Debian-med-packaging] mriconvert packaging / NeuroDebian derivative

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2013, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > > On second thought, however: what happens when Debian makes a new release?  The 
> > > patches would tend to need updating.

> > unless you keep changing portions of debian/control which get patched -- and if
> > you keep our backporting patches in the official package -- nothing would need
> > to be done on our side besides dget + debdiff (analysis of what changed) +
> > nd_build4allnd

> Yes.  The parts of control that you patch are precisely the most volatile
> ones: the debhelper version and build-deps.  I make no promise to be able
> to update the nd_ patches appropriately.

btw -- regarding debhelper, I have raised a related question
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=695801
"debian/compat -- allow to specify compatibility range with debhelper
taking the largest specified"
but discussion stalled (at least there is no 'wontfix' tag yet ;) )

Feel welcome to express your opinion (be it for/or against my suggestion
-- all good).

for now, while experimenting with possible workarounds, I have done following
for a (unannounced iirc) backport of glew package, which seems to work although
triggers some lintian warnings:

  W: glew source: debhelper-compat-file-is-missing
  W: glew source: package-uses-deprecated-debhelper-compat-version 1

this was my evil way to achieve the desired 

------------------------------- debian/changelog -------------------------------
index 570cafd..4198ffc 100644
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+glew (1.9.0-3~bnd1) neurodebian; urgency=low
+
+  * Generate debian/compat and have minimal debhelper compatible version 
+    in build-depends
+
+ -- Yaroslav Halchenko <debian at onerussian.com>  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:48:46 -0500
+
 glew (1.9.0-3~bnd0) neurodebian; urgency=low
 
   * Custom build of 1.9 for wheezy and alike:

-------------------------------- debian/compat --------------------------------
deleted file mode 100644
index ec63514..0000000
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-9

-------------------------------- debian/control --------------------------------
index 11b21d2..11eff38 100644
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Maintainer: Matteo F. Vescovi <mfv.debian at gmail.com>
 Uploaders: Fabrizio Regalli <fabreg at fabreg.it>
 Build-Depends: autotools-dev (>= 20100122.1~),
                binutils (>> 2.18),
-               debhelper (>= 9),
+               debhelper (>= 7),
                docbook-to-man,
                libgl1-mesa-dev | libgl-dev,
                libglu1-mesa-dev | libglu-dev,

--------------------------------- debian/rules ---------------------------------
index 362a6a5..af01244 100755
@@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
 # (C) 2012 Matteo F. Vescovi <mfv.debian at gmail.com>
 
 export DH_VERBOSE
+
+DH_MAJOR=$(shell dpkg -s debhelper | awk '/^Version:/{split($$2, a, "."); print a[1];}')
+
 # export DH_NO_ACT
 # export DH_OPTIONS
 
@@ -24,6 +27,7 @@ DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH ?= $(shell dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)
 
 configure: configure-stamp
 configure-stamp:
+   echo $(DH_MAJOR) >| debian/compat
    dh_testdir
    touch configure-stamp
 
@@ -47,6 +51,7 @@ clean:
    $(MAKE) distclean
    dh_autotools-dev_restoreconfig
    dh_clean
+   rm -f debian/compat
 
 # Build architecture-independent files here.
 binary-indep: build install

-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko
http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org
Postdoctoral Fellow,   Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik