[packaging] Wiki or summary page, anywhere?

Dan Kegel dank at kegel.com
Thu Dec 25 12:45:41 PST 2008


On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Jeff Johnson <n3npq at mac.com> wrote:
> The current specifications for LSB packaging quite clearly
> forbid explcit dependencies.

Right, it disallows dependencies on non-LSB resources.
http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/pkgdepend.html
does specify dependencies like
 lsb >= 3.1
 lsb-core-ia32 >= 3.0
though it doesn't specify them very well yet -- we had to fiddle a bit
to figure this part out.   I hope future versions of the LSB have
more examples.

Surprisingly, in private email with some LSB folks, I seem
to recall them saying that using LSB plus a few other packages
might be useful while transitioning a package towards LSB
compliance.  So that's what we're trying with the latest testing release
of Picasa.  Check it out:

$ wget http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386/picasa-2.7.3736-15.i386.rpm
$ wget http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/testing/i386/picasa-3.0-current.i386.rpm
$ rpm -q -R -p picasa-2.7.3736-15.i386.rpm > 27.deps
$ rpm -q -R -p picasa-3.0-current.i386.rpm > 30.deps
$ diff -u 27.deps 30.deps

--- 27.deps     2008-12-25 12:32:11.000000000 -0800
+++ 30.deps     2008-12-25 12:32:11.000000000 -0800
@@ -1,21 +1,18 @@
-/bin/bash
-ld-linux.so.2
-libICE.so.6
-libSM.so.6
-libX11.so.6
-libXext.so.6
-libXi.so.6
-libXmu.so.6
-libXpm.so.4
-libXt.so.6
-libc.so.6
-libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1)
-libdl.so.2
-libm.so.6
-libutil.so.1
+lsb >= 3.1
+lsb-core-ia32 >= 3.0
+libasound.so.2
+libaudiofile.so.0
 libcups.so.2
+libesd.so.0
+libexif.so.12
+libfreetype.so.6
 libgphoto2.so.2
 libsane.so.1
+libXau.so.6
+libXmu.so.6
+libXpm.so.4
+libxslt.so.1
+libXxf86vm.so.1
 /bin/sh

openssl isn't on that list because we can run in degraded mode
without it, and also probably because there's no portable way to
express that dependency.
When we try an lsb-3.2 or lsb-4.0 build, I expect we'll be able to
whittle that list down further.   (I'm particularly happy to see
the dependency on /bin/bash vanish.  I'm a big fan of portable
scripting.)

So far we haven't heard any complaints from users about this
not working, but it is just our testing repo, perhaps problems will
come out of the woodwork when we try to push it out more widely.

> The only flaw that I see in the above is that the time scale
> for solving "unmet dependencies" is measured in (at least) months
> and possibly years.

Yeah, it's taken a long time for packages to make it into the LSB.
- Dan

p.s. happy holidays to all!


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