Greetings, I've prepared two binary packages from one "Source: slang" package: slang0.99.34 - A C programming library for user interfaces - shared library slang0.99.34-dev - A C programming library for user interfaces - development kit
I wanted to set the following Section and Priority: Package Section Priority slang0.99.34 devel standard slang0.99.34-dev devel optional There are two main issues to be addressed: First, how to get the correct information into the control and .changes file. I have been unsuccessful in accomplishing this. In the debian/control file, empirical research shows that one can only put Section and Priority fields in the Source portion of the file and hence only identical values can be suggested here for each binary package. I have tried using these two commands in various places in debian/rules to no avail: dpkg-distaddfile slang0.99.34-dev_0.99.34-1_i386.deb devel optional dpkg-genchanges -DPriority=optional Anyone know the answer? Can we document it in the programmer's manual (or maybe it's there and I missed it)? Secondly, my decision to put the shared object in "standard" and the development kit in "optional" is /not/ the way tcl74, tcl75, and probably other do it. So I'm really making the suggestion that all shared libraries should go into "standard" so that most all systems would get these packages installed. But the -dev packages should only be installed by those who go out of their way in dselect to choose such "optional" packages. For ease of reference here is what the policy manual says: standard These packages provide a reasonably small but not too limited character-mode system. This is what will install by default if the user doesn't select anything else. It doesn't include many large applications, but it does include Emacs (this is more of a piece of infrastructure than an application) and a reasonable subset of TeX and LaTeX (if this is possible without X). optional[4] This is all the software that you might reasonably want to install if you didn't know what it was or don't have specialised requirements. This is a much larger system and includes X11, a full TeX distribution, and lots of applications. Finally, in the debian/shlibs file should I include information about historical versions of the current package? In my case should I add the line: libslang 0 slang-lib to this file, so that the old (inflexibly packaged) version of this shared lib is recorded for possible use later? At first I thought, of course. But now I'm leaning toward only including the current packages information. Because I can't see any reason to maintain that level of support for older versions of the shared libs. -- Christopher J. Fearnley | Linux/Internet Consulting [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] | UNIX SIG Leader at PACS http://www.netaxs.com/~cjf | (Philadelphia Area Computer Society) ftp://ftp.netaxs.com/people/cjf | Design Science Revolutionary "Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller | Explorer in Universe