How to convert a Debian package from CVS to svn

This page describes the steps necessary to convert a Debian package that has its Debian sources managed in CVS to a svn repository. It has been created accompanying the migration of the nagios-plugins package from an Alioth CVS repository to an ?Alioth/SVN repository.

debian/-only package layout

Usually, in CVS, you have both the upstream sources and the Debian changes in the same CVS repository. This imposes extra work in case of Upstream updates and is confusing to beginners.

You can, of course, maintain your package the same way in svn. But svn-buildpackage can do better: It can merge upstream sources at build time, so that you only need to maintain the debian/ subdirectory under your version control. This makes the repository much smaller and is a great help in development. Of course, if you want to patch upstream, you need to use dpatch or a similiar system to apply patches located inside debian/ to the upstream sources at build time.

Converting

You're done. Continue only if you intend to convert your package to a debian/-only setup

debian/-only setup

You're done!


CategorySoftware CategoryVersionControlSystem