On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 04:00:28PM +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > i am preparing the Debian package for a new upstream release of libisofs > and see on its tracker page > https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libisofs > a new "action needed": > > "Multiarch hinter reports 1 issue(s)"
Thank you for looking into that. > The link points to > https://wiki.debian.org/MultiArch/Hints > > But where to see the actual complaint ? tracker.d.o initially displays a compressed form for action items. On the left of the item there is a little arrow. Clicking that reveals the actual issues. This is a generic tracker.d.o UI aspect and not specific to the multiarch hinter. > The MultiArch/Hints wiki page says > "marking it Multi-Arch: foreign usually is safe." > but does not clearly state what it means by "usually". There are a few obscure exceptions to that rule. For instance, if you want a package that is only installable for the native architecture, you can have it depend on an Architecture: all + Multi-Arch: no package. Also triggers are ignored by the hinter and post-installation actions of triggers could turn the hint invalid. For the Multi-Arch: foreign hints, I am not aware of any real-world exceptional use cases. I'm still looking for ways to improve the explanation text, but it turns out that multiarch is hard to explain in general. > There is no mentioning of "Multi-arch" in > https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html There are like 6 bugs for adding multiarch to policy. Progress is slow. > More Google brings me to > https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO > with the statement: > "If a package is marked 'Multi-Arch: foreign', then it can satisfy > dependencies of a package of a different architecture." That's one of the better ones. Also consider https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultiarchSpec if you need a specification-like document. > I am about as confused as a year ago: > "Multi-arch and debian/control" > https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2015/09/msg00403.html > All packages got "Multi-arch: same" then, except libisofs-doc which > got no Multi-arch header at all. I cannot find or remember the reason > for that. The reason here is that libisofs-doc is Architecture: all. The spec says that Multi-Arch: same is not applicable to Architecture: all packages at all. Thus marking it that way would be invalid. Also things have changed a little since 2015. The whole business around adding Pre-Depends on multiarch-support is gone. You can still add ${misc:Pre-Depends} to Pre-Depends to ease backporting, but in general that transition is over and we don't need that Pre-Depends anymore. > Could somebody please look into > https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/libi/libisofs/control-1.4.4-1 > and tell me what to do ? Add "Multi-Arch: foreign" to the binary package section of libisofs-doc. The practical effect is that if you install libisofs-dev for a foreign architecture, its suggestion of libisofs-doc will become resolvable. > (And was i really expected to google for a link to the 1.9 MB yaml file ?) No. You were supposed to click the little arrow. Is there any way to make that more clear? Helmut
