[Pkg-pascal-devel] Bug#845498: Bug#845498: Bug#845498: /usr/bin/fpc-3.0.0: Provide cross-compilers

[Ben Longbons]

Okay, I've got it *almost* working:
https://gist.github.com/o11c/cf98115ba716ebdd1dc2cc75b290f321

I'm still getting errors from update-alternatives in postinst, but I
*think* everything else is right - at least, things that weren't
completely wrong before (there are a lot of those).

I have SUCCESSFULLY produced 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit host, but
that doesn't prove the /etc/ stuff is right. Need to add testcases,
and also force linking with libc.

Hopefully this answers the various questions people have had, e.g.
about what we need to do about binutils.

There are a LOT of TODOs, referring to various bugs (or things) in
various packages (or things), in the script. I suggest you guys look
at them.

Oh, and I haven't tested phase3 with anything besides --dist=stretch.

I will be updating the gist, so remember to `git pull` before.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Abou Al Montacir
<abou.almontacir at sfr.fr> wrote:
> Instead of writing a tool to hack all this, I'd propose you submit patches
> and join the maintain team.

I'd rather pull my own teeth out with a rusty spoon. Debian packaging
is beyond all doubts the worst I've ever played with - nearly entirely
due to the "in-source" rather than "out-of-source" nature of the
packaging (which is also extremely hostile to upstreams).

Compare e.g. The Fedora documentation [1] - it is *far* simpler for
newcomers, and this is *not* a matter of documentation. (I used to
mention Gentoo since that was my first, but that always makes people
get distracted by the totally-irrelevant fact that the Gentoo project
doesn't *ship* the binary packages). For that matter, even NixOS
packages[2], which live in an utterly alien environment, are easier to
get into than Debian packages.

[1]: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora_Draft_Documentation/0.1/html/Packagers_Guide/sect-Packagers_Guide-Creating_a_Basic_Spec_File.html
[2]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/