3 ms·

Basically what infinity0 described in his sibling comments. I want to have a source package that can be used to build the binary package in a deterministic and

by Athas 6y ago

Basically what infinity0 described in his sibling comments. I want to have a source package that can be used to build the binary package in a deterministic and reproducible way.

pizza234 6y ago
This post describes how to do that, via PPAs: https://is.gd/Eu55IG https://is.gd/Eu55IG.
- Athas 6y ago
  Thanks. That may have been useful to me once, although my motivation was to get my software in the main Debian package set, which I think is quite a different thing from PPAs. Also... look at that guide. Why is it so difficult and obtuse? Why do I have to run so many odd tools, including apparently modifying some file in /etc and running other stuff as root? In contrast, this was my first contribution to Nixpkgs: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/0b8efd8724e59964bad01060935ce291288761c9 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/0b8efd8724e59964bad0... Easily as reproducible as anything Debian, and apart from installing Nix it didn't require any funkyness in the build environment. I tested the definition by running 'nix-build . -A oclgrind' in my checkout of the Nixpkgs repository. I managed this after running NixOS for two days. This is the same software that I also contributed to Homebrew: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commit/1268459f761dd204d1f4a662880afba78d9fa57e https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commit/1268459f761... Again, a simple declarative-ish package description (written in Ruby, which is not my favourite, but it's better than the weird Makefile/shell amalgamations that are used by DPKG and RPM). Both Nix and Homebrew have serious limitations compared to Debian (Homebrew in particular is aggressively limiting its scope to gain simplicity and in particularly doesn't care as much about reproducibility). But as a user, I must admit I have not missed what Debian provides that these do not. Whenever I tried to package stuff for Debian, I felt that I was paying a tax for unclear gain. It's a shame, because I like Debian for over a decade, and I am strongly sympathetic to the idea of the project in principle.
  - sm_ts 6y ago
    > Also... look at that guide. Why is it so difficult and obtuse? Why do I have to run so many odd tools I agree that Debian packaging is difficult/odd/arguably obtuse; I guess it's a legacy matter. Your phrasing can be interpreted as if the guide itself is obtuse, it's not clear :) > including apparently modifying some file in /etc and running other stuff as root? It's important to read and understand it fully. Anything you do it as root is required only to run a preview build locally. This is an optional step, so no, one doesn't need to perform admin configurations/operations if they don't want to, although performing a local build is a desirable step. > In contrast, this was my first contribution to Nixpkgs This is not a proper comparison, as you're comparing an entirely manual procedure versus using a packaging tool. A proper (closer) comparison is probably against the tool that the guide references: https://github.com/saveriomiroddi/ppa_packaging https://github.com/saveriomiroddi/ppa_packaging, where you just declare all the metadata, and invoke a script that takes care of everything. All in all, I'm personally puzzled about why there aren't tools around to simplify/automate Debian packaging. I've started the small tool mentioned above (`ppa_packaging`), but I'll likely not continue working on it, as my experience with niche projects is that, while useful in their (narrow) domain, they're very resource-intensive to maintain.
  - slgeorge 6y ago
    Mostly because all of these systems came AFTER Debian. I mean Debian packaging is a terrible pain - but I have to have empathy with the fact that it's a technical system and more importantly an online community that's been doing it's thing since 1993. The fact is that with such a long-running system there's more than one way to do everything. The way we discuss/learn technology has also partly changed. Most of the documentation for Debian is extensive manuals - there's "not enough" intro text, and then "too much" detailed documentation And then there's the "cost of change". Lots of Debian developers have been packaging using their particular versions of tools for a long time and are happy with them. In many ways Debian works because the people working on it care about quality and the tooling is second order to the efforts they make.

by Athas 6y ago

Basically what infinity0 described in his sibling comments. I want to have a source package that can be used to build the binary package in a deterministic and reproducible way.

pizza234 6y ago

This post describes how to do that, via PPAs: https://is.gd/Eu55IG https://is.gd/Eu55IG.

Athas 6y ago
Thanks. That may have been useful to me once, although my motivation was to get my software in the main Debian package set, which I think is quite a different thing from PPAs. Also... look at that guide. Why is it so difficult and obtuse? Why do I have to run so many odd tools, including apparently modifying some file in /etc and running other stuff as root? In contrast, this was my first contribution to Nixpkgs: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/0b8efd8724e59964bad01060935ce291288761c9 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/0b8efd8724e59964bad0... Easily as reproducible as anything Debian, and apart from installing Nix it didn't require any funkyness in the build environment. I tested the definition by running 'nix-build . -A oclgrind' in my checkout of the Nixpkgs repository. I managed this after running NixOS for two days. This is the same software that I also contributed to Homebrew: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commit/1268459f761dd204d1f4a662880afba78d9fa57e https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commit/1268459f761... Again, a simple declarative-ish package description (written in Ruby, which is not my favourite, but it's better than the weird Makefile/shell amalgamations that are used by DPKG and RPM). Both Nix and Homebrew have serious limitations compared to Debian (Homebrew in particular is aggressively limiting its scope to gain simplicity and in particularly doesn't care as much about reproducibility). But as a user, I must admit I have not missed what Debian provides that these do not. Whenever I tried to package stuff for Debian, I felt that I was paying a tax for unclear gain. It's a shame, because I like Debian for over a decade, and I am strongly sympathetic to the idea of the project in principle.
- sm_ts 6y ago
  > Also... look at that guide. Why is it so difficult and obtuse? Why do I have to run so many odd tools I agree that Debian packaging is difficult/odd/arguably obtuse; I guess it's a legacy matter. Your phrasing can be interpreted as if the guide itself is obtuse, it's not clear :) > including apparently modifying some file in /etc and running other stuff as root? It's important to read and understand it fully. Anything you do it as root is required only to run a preview build locally. This is an optional step, so no, one doesn't need to perform admin configurations/operations if they don't want to, although performing a local build is a desirable step. > In contrast, this was my first contribution to Nixpkgs This is not a proper comparison, as you're comparing an entirely manual procedure versus using a packaging tool. A proper (closer) comparison is probably against the tool that the guide references: https://github.com/saveriomiroddi/ppa_packaging https://github.com/saveriomiroddi/ppa_packaging, where you just declare all the metadata, and invoke a script that takes care of everything. All in all, I'm personally puzzled about why there aren't tools around to simplify/automate Debian packaging. I've started the small tool mentioned above (`ppa_packaging`), but I'll likely not continue working on it, as my experience with niche projects is that, while useful in their (narrow) domain, they're very resource-intensive to maintain.
- slgeorge 6y ago
  Mostly because all of these systems came AFTER Debian. I mean Debian packaging is a terrible pain - but I have to have empathy with the fact that it's a technical system and more importantly an online community that's been doing it's thing since 1993. The fact is that with such a long-running system there's more than one way to do everything. The way we discuss/learn technology has also partly changed. Most of the documentation for Debian is extensive manuals - there's "not enough" intro text, and then "too much" detailed documentation And then there's the "cost of change". Lots of Debian developers have been packaging using their particular versions of tools for a long time and are happy with them. In many ways Debian works because the people working on it care about quality and the tooling is second order to the efforts they make.