On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 03:13:59PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> You are also free to properly package it yourself and find a sponsor to >> upload it for you (assuming you are not already a Debian Developer >> yourself, which I am guessing you are not). > > I do not see the need to do anything other than sign the package and drop > it into the repository, as it is already completely functional for Debian.
Maybe. Maybe not. [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ lintian opera_9.23-20070809.3-shared-qt_en_powerpc.deb W: opera: extra-license-file usr/share/doc/opera/LICENSE.gz W: opera: extra-license-file usr/share/opera/locale/en/license.txt W: opera: menu-file-in-usr-lib usr/lib/menu/opera W: opera: menu-item-uses-apps-section /usr/lib/menu/opera:3 W: opera: menu-item-creates-new-section Apps/Net /usr/lib/menu/opera:3 That's okay-ish for a .deb, seen how it comes from a commercial company. But when looking at it in slightly more detail, I find some really weird, ugly and freaky things that lintian does not catch: - Its postinst generates a desktop file that it drops on some random place on the hard disk (the exact position depends on whether Gnome, KDE, or some other Desktop environment is installed; whether some environment variables are set; and I wouldn't be surprised if the phase of the moon would have some influence, too). Why it does not simply ship a .desktop file as part of the package is beyond me. As part of this, it also has to copy a number of .png files into place. Neither the .desktop file nor the .png file are then known to dpkg, which, e.g., breaks diversions. - The Description field sounds more like a sales pitch than like a description. - The debian changelog is less than helpful. These changelogs aren't just random idioticracy; they help us track down when a particular issue was introduced, so that we would be able to fix *all* buggy packages, rather than just those packages that we (perhaps erroneously) thought were buggy. - There is something horribly wrong with there dependencies. I did install it, but then I got this: ERROR: ld.so: object 'libjvm.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored. ERROR: ld.so: object 'libawt.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored. /usr/lib/opera/9.23-20070809.3/opera: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Apparently I'd downloaded the wrong version at first; but with proper dependencies, dpkg would have rejected the installation of this package in the first place. I got bored by then. A package with the above issues should not just be uploaded to the Debian archive. This is much, much more than just a "sign and upload" thing. > I understand this is not the Debian way and I understand that in quite a > few instances many packages created for Debian by outside parties could > still have problems. I am reasonably certain that this is not an issue with > Opera, given the widespread use and the fantastic job they have always done > packaging their browser for Linux. Perhaps not everyone is convinced about the quality of Opera. -- <Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes. -- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
