A (git) workflow for Debian packaging

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Fri Oct  5 15:08:48 2007, martin f krafft <madduck> said: 

> Dear list, after messing up the pkg-mdadm Git repository, I finally
> decided that it was time for me to figure out how to *properly*
> package with Git. And with the help of the #git/freenode channel, I
> think I managed to understand Git enough to the point where I could
> come up with an acceptable workflow. I am soliciting your feedback.

> I know about git-buildpackage and gitpkg, but I prefer to do it by
> hand, at least for now. I also decided to *not* mention
> guilt/quilt/stgit in this post, it's already too long.

> Before I publish my findings, I would like to make sure it's clear and
> correct, or I'd cause more confusion. Thus I am very glad that a
> couple of Git experts have recently joined this list.

        Thanks for the writeup. I have been considering migrating off
 arch for a while now, but it takes me about 6 months or so to get my
 work-flow going optimally again, and I was waiting for something like
 this. I note you still have feature branches,I find those invaluable. I
 have a few questions about your setup: 

  a) You have a branch for your ./debian directory, right? In an earlier
     incantation on this list, you had a debian-dir ancestr that you
     could inherit from, and thus rapidly deploy changes to ./debian. Is
     this still the case?

        My current set up has package foo, which has an upstream branch,
        and feature branches (children of the upstream branch), and an
        integration branch.

        I also have ./debian, which is a child of a parent debian-dir
        project, which allows me to have a common build setup, and
        rapidly make changes across all my packages are required (new
        policy, etc).

        I also have ./debian/common, a separate project, which is the
        single location to make changes to the common package building
        setup.

 Can git actually handle such a setup? (my understanding was that it can
 not, but I'll be happy to be proved wrong).

        I don't know git well enough yet to have interesting commentary
 on the rest of the post; but if git has indeed gained the capability to
 handle nested projects (my ./debian dirs for separate packages havce
 little to do with the upstream software in thge packages,mbut have a
 lot in common with each other), then it might be worth spending time to
 learn git and move on from arch.

        manoj

-- 
Delightful for them are the forests where men find no delight. The
desire-free find delight there, for they seek no sensual joys. 99
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta at acm.org> <http://www.golden-gryphon.com/>
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