[Debian-med-packaging] status of meme Debian packaging

[Andreas Tille]

Hi,

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 04:42:26PM +0530, Faheem Mitha wrote:
> 
> It turns out that I was making the elementary error of using `debuild
> binary` when I should have been using `debuild`. With the former
> command, the patches are not applied, hence the error I posted
> about. I think I knew this and have forgotten. Thanks to Paul Wise
> (pabs) on #debian-mentors on OFTC for setting me straight.

Ahh, yes, sure.  (I never used `debuild binary`)
 
> As regards svn-buildpackage, I'm just copying the debian directory
> (the packaging from svn) into the sources and then using
> `debuild`. This works.  I don't think svn-buildpackage is really
> necessary - too much overhead.

Same for me.  Your workflow should work fine.

> BTW, does anyone know a good place to ask for help about MEME? This
> page (http://meme.nbcr.net/meme/resources.html) has a user forum link,
> but it is broken.

Sorry, no.  If you find a reasonable way to contact meme authors - we
need to ask them for a better download link.  The current ftp server
layout is very bad for parsing using uscan.

> Also, what do you do about this annoying habit of the MEME project
> of having a separate directory with extra patches? I don't see them
> in the debian directory.

Good hint.  Well, the reason why we do not have these is that those who
worked on the package (at least me) do not know about this.  This is
*very* unfriendly for distributors.  It is hard enough to parse their
version number at ftp mirror and impossble to detect new patch levels
automatically.  :-(

Before we do upload the meme package we should install these patches as
quilt patches (untested, but should work in principle).  I just added
this to the TODO items in debian/changelog.

> I was able to build 4.8.1 without problems. Maybe I'll give 4.9.0 a
> try. Comparing the 4.8.1 build with 4.9 might be instructive.

I think the differences are not that hard.  The quilt patches just
needed some manual updates, an additional build-depends zlib-dev was
needed and due to name changes of the resulting binaries I changed
debian/meme.install to use wildcards instead of fixed names.
 
> Thanks, you too.

Please test the packages and report issues here on the list (no need
to CC me personally).

Kind regards

      Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de