On ke, 2011-02-02 at 17:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: > This is easily done with autopkgtest; the only difference from your > proposal is that the source package needs to be downloaded. Doing so > is not difficult or troublesome, and can be done automatically.
I concur. However, looking things from a slightly different angle, I can see several use cases for automated testing in Debian: * the package maintainers want to know that their package works * upstream wants to know we haven't broken anything in Debian * release managers (and everyone else!) want to know the disto in general is ready to release, and also that any one updated package doesn't break other stuff (e.g., libpng might break web browsers using it) * security team wants to know the security update doesn't break anything * sysadmins want to know upgrading to a new release doesn't break their servers * I want to know I can upgrade to today's version of testing without anything major breaking Obviously, no amount of testing will be able to find all breakage, but even a relatively low test coverage can be extremely helpful, if it is targeted suitably. autopkgtest seems to me to target package maintainers, release managers, and the security team, from the list above. A different toolset and possibly testset might be necessary for other use cases. Once we have those tools, we can use them, but for now concentrating on autopkgtest is probably the best idea. -- Blog/wiki/website hosting with ikiwiki (free for free software): http://www.branchable.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1296668875.8434.10.ca...@havelock.lan