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 * dpkg-gensymbols offers new ways to manage symbols files (matching C++ symbols by their demangled name, matching symbols with regular expressions) thanks to Modestas Vainius.

News for Debian developers

This wiki page collects small news that all developers should know but that are not worth a dedicated mail to debian-devel-announce. When we have collected 5 items, we'll send the content of this wiki page to debian-devel-announce. Follow the template "Example of news" and add your news below it. See /Help for more information on how to write entries.

Example of news

This is a sample news. Copy it and edit the title, content and signature... You can use links like this. Put real news below this sample.

-- Your Name

Recent changes in dpkg

The versions 1.15.6 and 1.15.7 introduced several important changes. Let's skim over them:

  • The perl modules (Dpkg::*) have been moved to a new libdpkg-perl package, we froze the API of many of them and you can thus safely use them now;

  • The maintscript-helper tool has been introduced in dpkg to help packagers deal with renaming conffiles and removing obsolete conffiles. Check its manual page maintscript-helper(1) for more details on how to use it. This shell script might be extended over time to cover other common operations. Feel free to make suggestions while it's not too late to make changes on this new interface.
  • dpkg-dev provides a new script called dpkg-mergechangelogs that can be used to do 3-way merges of Debian changelogs. It is already used on several git repositories to provide automatic merge of debian/changelog.
  • dpkg-dev provides a new script called dpkg-buildflags that packages should use in debian/rules to retrieve the default value of various compilation flags. Bug #578597 has been submitted against debian-policy. When generalized this offer us centralized archive-wide control of the default build flags as well as the possibility for end-users to try out easily new flags.

  • dpkg-gensymbols offers new ways to manage symbols files (matching C++ symbols by their demangled name, matching symbols with regular expressions) thanks to Modestas Vainius.
  • dpkg-source can now be fed options through debian/source/local-options but this file won't end up in the generated source package. This can be useful to include some VCS-specific options (ignore of some VCS-specific files, --single-debian-patch) in the repository but not have them in the generated source package.
  • The plan concerning dpkg-source and the default source format has been clarified. In the long term, the default format will disappear and debian/source/format will become mandatory. The lintian tag missing-debian-source-format will help us track that.

  • dpkg is now more resilient against powerloss and other brutal interruptions. After several iterations on the topic, the performance loss due to the supplementary fsync()/sync() should be acceptable in 1.15.7.2 and mostly compensated by the optimization made in other areas (for example in loading the /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list files).

-- Raphaël Hertzog & Guillem Jover, the dpkg maintainers

LWN subscriptions

Bdale Garbee announced that DMs are now eligible to receive HP-sponsored LWN subscriptions, in addition to DDs. Currently about 571 DDs and DMs are taking advantage of HP-sponsored LWN subscriptions.

-- Paul Wise

ubuntudiff.debian.net

A new service called UbuntuDiff has been setup. It allows you to quickly see Ubuntu changes made to Debian packages by specifying a grep-dctrl query or by using shortcuts (e.g. http://ubuntudiff.debian.net/q/package/linux-ntfs, http://ubuntudiff.debian.net/q/uploaders/mehdi@debian.org). Your feedback and bug reports are welcome.

-- Mehdi Dogguy

TXT records on debian.net

Debian Sysadmins have enabled TXT records for debian.net domains. It is suggested that you might want to use them to indicate maintainer information in the case that the domain is "sponsored" by a DD and maintained by a non-DD. Please note that since CNAME records cannot be combined with other record types, you should get a TXT record added to the canonical name instead of adding it to the debian.net domain.

-- Paul Wise

Debian Sysadmin Team seeks for help

A while ago, Stephen Gran sent a 'Request for Help' to the porter and project mailinglists asking for assistance in maintaining the chroots on the porter machines. Several people applied and are now helping out with that (thanks!); still, we could use more helping hands. If you're interested check the message and contact DSA. Peter Palfrader also described in the recent mail about porter chroot updates how to format the Subject of a mail to make life easier for DSA.

-- Martin Zobel-Helas

Receive Ubuntu bugs by mail via PTS

It is now possible to subscribe to Ubuntu bugmail for the packages you care about, without having to use Launchpad (and subscribe on a per-package basis there). This is implemented as a new opt-in Package Tracking System keyword: derivatives-bugs.

To subscribe for all your packages, use 'keyword [email] + derivatives-bugs' (as documented in the Developers Reference). You might also want to subscribe to 'derivatives' (Ubuntu diff, etc. also opt-in).

Of course, if other derivative distributions are interested in providing such data, don't hesitate to contact the Debian QA team.

Also, if you never remember about subscribing to packages you maintain, you can use that UDD script to check for missing subscriptions.

-- Lucas Nussbaum

Previous news

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