howto develop packages for linux

[Nico Schottelius]

Hello!

If you develop packages for GNU/Linux or think about it, please read
[url]http://linux.schottelius.org/decr-f/[/url]
[url]http://linux.schottelius.org/docs/linux-developers.html[/url]

This will save us all much time and work.

Nico

[James Antill]

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:27:14 +0000, Nico Schottelius wrote:

> Hello!
>
> If you develop packages for GNU/Linux or think about it, please read
> [url]http://linux.schottelius.org/decr-f/[/url]

Why have you made this format, what is the advantage that makes you do
yet another one going against your page at...

[url]http://linux.schottelius.org/docs/one-better-than-ten.html[/url]

....why can't you use pkg-config for most dependancies? What happens if you
have dependancies that vary depending on how you compile? How come you
haven't thought of using more than one mirror ... or even a bittorrent
link?

> [url]http://linux.schottelius.org/docs/linux-developers.html[/url]

This is even worse crack.

> This will save us all much time and work.

But what does it save everyone who is not you? Why can't you write
importers for the data in freshmeat/gnu directory/PAD/etc. and save
everyone else _much_ more time and work.

--
James Antill -- [email]james@and.org[/email]
Need an efficent and powerful string library for C?
[url]http://www.and.org/vstr/[/url]

[Nico Schottelius]

In article <pan.2003.07.21.03.21.45.700951@and.org>, James Antill wrote:

> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:27:14 +0000, Nico Schottelius wrote:
>

>> Hello!
>>
>> If you develop packages for GNU/Linux or think about it, please read
>> [url]http://linux.schottelius.org/decr-f/[/url]

>
> Why have you made this format, what is the advantage that makes you do
> yet another one going against your page at...

Very good questions!

1) why / advantages
because there is no package format out there which operates with
'stupid' packages like tars, zips, rars, etc.
the second reason is that having all those decr-f files together
makes a real powerful resource:
You'll never ever have to search for libA, which is needed by progB.
You simply say 'cpackage install progB', which tries some different
methods to retrieve decr-f files and then installs progB.
I know it is similar to debian packaging. Debian packages have the
disadvantage that they must be created, decr-f can even use cvs as
source.

> [url]http://linux.schottelius.org/docs/one-better-than-ten.html[/url]
>
> ...why can't you use pkg-config for most dependancies?

Because I want to know dependencies before I download the program.
pkg-config is a very powerful tool and I think I will even use some of
its code for cpackage.

> What happens if you
> have dependancies that vary depending on how you compile?

good point. I am missing that in decr-f 0.2.4. I have to add it to the
next release.

> How come you
> haven't thought of using more than one mirror ... or even a bittorrent
> link?

what is a bittorrent link?
As you can read on the page, I am searching for people mirroring,
but I don't know who I should ask for it.

>> [url]http://linux.schottelius.org/docs/linux-developers.html[/url]

>
> This is even worse crack.

thanks, can you tell me why so I can learn from (if I did some) my
mistakes?

>> This will save us all much time and work.

>
> But what does it save everyone who is not you?

time and work.
If you produce clean packages / code everyone will benefit.

> Why can't you write
> importers for the data in freshmeat/gnu directory/PAD/etc. and save
> everyone else _much_ more time and work.

I thought about this, too.
But writing something which finds dependencies on standard tar files
made me go mad.

It's true GNU/Linux package developers need to spent some time _once_.
And then you'll be able to get their package very easy.

Sincerly,

Nico