[maemo-developers] Software categories

[From: Ed Bartosh]

On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 18:59 +0300, Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 06:55:54PM +0300, ext Ed Bartosh wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 17:24 +0300, ext Guillem Jover wrote:
> > > For the Section:s stuff, as I've said few times on this thread, you
> > > just need to add override files (check the man pages for deb-override,
> > > dpkg-scanpackages and/or apt-ftparchive on an up-to-date Debian sid
> > > system). 
> > Thank you for the info, will look at it.
> > Does it mean that we have to install sid if we want to use this? Hmm...
> 
> No, the functionality's been present for about six or seven years or so,
> so it should be okay.
> 
Just read dpkg-scanpackages manpage. Format of override file contains
package name. Does it mean that repository maintainer have to put every
package there in order to override section?

> > BTW, I didn't manage to find deb-override in any Debian distribution,
> > sorry. I used my debian/testing system and then
> > http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages without any luck. 
> > Can you point me out to it please?
> 
> The deb-override manpage is only present in dpkg 1.14.x, but previous to
> this, I believe the information was in the dpkg-scanpackages manpage.
> 
Thanks.

> > > This makes unnecessary to fork the current packages taken
> > > from Debian, allows centralized changes in the Section:s on the
> > > archive if need be, and does not require rejecting packages just for
> > > this.
> > We already have a lot of this kind of packages. All user packages have
> > to have 'User/something' in their debian/control in order to be
> > installable with AM. Look at Marius' instruction
> > http://hildon-app-mgr.garage.maemo.org/packaging.html. That's the way AM
> > works at the moment. And developers follow these packaging
> > instructions. 
> > It doesn't mean that we can't use bright new Debian approach in future,
> > but now people already using this one.
> 
> Right.  It's not about having an instant 100% solution that magically
> fixes every package, but means that any package imported from Debian in
> future doesn't have to be forked, which seems like a win to me.
> 
Well, as far as I know only top level application packages are required
to have 'User' in section, but most of them are forked anyway, because
they use hildon libraries. Rest of packages could be taken as is if
Debian would have armel architecture supported. So, what's the issue
we're trying to solve?

-- 
Ed Bartosh <eduard.bartosh at nokia.com>
Nokia-M/Helsinki