Package: debian-policy Version: 4.5.1.0 Hi,
In 4.9 "Main building script: debian/rules", we find the following paragraph under the description "build (required)": """ > For some packages, notably ones where the same source tree is compiled in > different ways to produce two binary packages, the build target does not make > much sense. For these packages it is good enough to provide two (or more) > targets (build-a and build-b or whatever) for each of the ways of building > the package, and a build target that does nothing. The binary target will > have to build the package in each of the possible ways and make the binary > package out of each. """ I think the "binary target will have to build the package in each of the possible ways" part is a remanent from the time Debian did *not* support build-arch and build-indep. A much better recommendation would be to have build-arch and build-indep targets depend on the relevant build-a, build-b (etc.) targets to keep the build out of the binary target. Notably they are builds plus the binary target *can* be run under (fake)root. Thanks, ~Niels
