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Posts Tagged ‘debian’

guilt: my first Debian package

3/21/2007 – 9:46 am
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Debian LogoFor the last few weeks I have been working on a Debian package for guilt, a quilt like tool that works on top of a git repository.

Getting the initial package together was easy thanks to dh_make. This created the debian/ directory and basic control files that were needed to Debianize the source. After customizing all of the control files I built the package with dpkg-buildpackage and it seemed to work!

But, I quickly hit a bump in the road, lintian, the Debian package checker complained that there were no man pages.

$ lintian -c guilt_0.20-1_i386.deb
W: guilt: binary-without-manpage guilt
W: guilt: binary-without-manpage guilt-add
...
W: guilt: binary-without-manpage guilt-top
W: guilt: binary-without-manpage guilt-unapplied

Knowing the package would never get sponsored without docs I worked with Josef Sipek, guilt author, to get an asciidoc documentation system built for guilt. In a few days we had built a man page for every command in the system and the lintian warnings were gone, w00t.

With the package in good shape Debian developer Pierre Habouzit kindly sponsored my package. And today I got notification that the package has been uploaded Debian!

Next step: Become a Debian developer.

P.S. If any Debian developers from around Oregon are reading I need my GPG key signed :)

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LCA Day #1

1/17/2007 – 2:33 am
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I had been meaning to post daily updates from LCA but the conference is just too awesome to get a chance to blog- ROCK!

Debian Miniconf #6
As a Debian groupie I started the conference off with a brief by the Debian project leader (DPL) Anthony Towns. The first minute of the talk was really strong. Then his phone rang and he took the call! It was the first time I had ever seen this at a conference.

After a good minute of “uh huh *pause* yes, yes, ok ok” he got off the phone and asked one of the audience members to call his mum. Naturally, everyone was very confused. It turned out he was moving today and his mom was the only person in the area to look after the movers.

With that brief interruption the Debian miniconf was off!

A few of the highlights:

  • Funny: m68k buildd is keeping up properly thanks to an emulated build box running on amd64
  • Hopeful: the rework of the GNU Free Documentation License to fit into the DFSG
  • Sad: There were updates on IceWeasel. Why is Sun better at working with Debian than the much more open Mozilla Corp?

bluetooth cameras

The next talk was interesting because of the problem domain: honey bees. Jamie Honan, the presenter, was trying to find a way to keep an eye on his remote bee hives to prevent them from swarming. The problem with a swarming hive is that his next door neighbor is allergic to bees. The best detection method of a swarming hive is smacking the hive and listening to the frequency of the reaction. He didn’t have a mechanical process for smacking the hive yet but a device like the Fascinating Electronics USB servo controller that I brought along for show and tell would work great.

The last session I went to before the embedded show and tell was a talk by Keith Packard on the direction that X.org is heading. If all goes according to plan it shouldn’t be necessary to have much of an xorg.conf in a few more versions as most everything will be hot-pluggable. w00t!

It was a great day. Thanks to the Seven who are putting this week together.

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