Contents

  1. First Meeting (2022)
  2. Contact details
  3. Background information
    1. Installing yarn
    2. Using yarn 2 with node_modules plugin
      1. End of Scripts
  4. Initial Tasks
    1. Packaging tasks
    2. Nodejs tasks
    3. Documentation tasks
    4. About Patch File
    5. List of packages with minor/patch updates
    6. New modules to be packaged
    7. Advanced packaging updates
    8. Advanced nodejs tasks
  5. Outreachy Project Status
    1. First Meeting ( 21st May 2021 ) : Division of tasks
    2. May 2022 - August 2022 Round Progress Report
    3. Blogs 2021
    4. Blogs 2022
  6. Helpful Q & A
  7. Useful Resources

Creating a yarn plugin to resolve node modules installed as debian packages via apt was a project proposal for Outreachy 2021. Some part was implemented in Outreachy 2021 and remaining part will be completed in Outreachy 2022.

First Meeting (2022)

Contact details

Background information

Blog posts of previous interns (this will be very useful to new interns)

Contributor's first contribution experience (helpful for new interns)

Learn more about Javascript packaging at Javascript/Mentors

Installing yarn

In Debian yarn is provided by yarnpkg package (as yarn command is already taken by cmdtest package. See 913997 for details). 

# apt install yarnpkg

Using yarn 2 with node_modules plugin

$ mkdir test-project
$ cd test-project
$ yarnpkg add pretty-ms
$ yarnpkg set version berry
$ if ! grep nodeLinker .yarnrc.yml >/dev/null; then echo "nodeLinker: \"node-modules\"" >>.yarnrc.yml; fi
$ yarnpkg install

End of Scripts

This will create .yarnrc.yml file in the current direcory and will append the line nodeLinker: "node-modules" to a .yarnrc.yml file which tells yarn 2 to use node_modules plugin to have the same behaviour of yarn 1 or npm. Note that yarn 2 does not create nodes_modules directory by default.

Initial Tasks

Packaging tasks

  1. Checkout npm2deb and create a package (pretty-ms, for example). Then look at the deb file which got created and see the folder structure, etc. npm2deb create pretty-ms will get you a .deb. Inspect the deb using an archive manager like file roller or install the deb using dpkg and see where it got installed, dpkg -L node-pretty-ms https://github.com/LeoIannacone/npm2deb

  2. Learn how to create a deb package for simple modules following https://wiki.abrahamraji.in/simple-packaging-tutorial/ and https://wiki.debian.org/SimplePackagingTutorial. See also https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2015/07/14/using-dh-make-to-prepare-debian-packages/ Note: debmake is broken for node packages, so use dh_make command from dh-make package instead.

  3. Update an existing node package to new upstream minor or patch version following https://wiki.debian.org/Javascript/Nodejs/Npm2Deb#Updating_a_package_to_new_upstream_release (Pick a node package from https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=praveen%40debian.org compare the versions in unstable or experimental with version in watch column. https://semver.org/ defines what is a major, minor or a patch version.)

Nodejs tasks

Documentation tasks

PS: Send a mail to wiki@debian.org explaining why you want an account created, and included in that mail should be your email address for the account creation, else the account will not be created. Account creation is only limited to this process to prevent the system from being spammed by random editors.

About Patch File

In debian, whenever we need to change a file in the upstream code, we create a patch for that file and the regarding changes are saved in that patch file. In most of the cases, the patch file is needed to be forwarded upstream and involves coordinating with other upstream developers. One of the most simple and best way is to open a pull request to the upstream repository. Keep note of the following points:

  1. In debian, we add build dependencies in control file but upstream uses package.json, which also needed to be updated.
  2. Before opening a PR always do a yarn or npm install based on the upstream preferred package manager and run test with the your changes.

Helpful resources- https://wiki.debian.org/UsingQuilt https://tools.ietf.org/doc/quilt/quilt.html

List of packages with minor/patch updates

(Before updating existing modules, always ensure that the packages are not updated in Debian archives)

New modules to be packaged

Advanced packaging updates

If you have done 2-3 minor updates and confident about the process and tools, then try one of these tasks

Advanced nodejs tasks

Outreachy Project Status

Two interns started working on this project.

First Meeting ( 21st May 2021 ) : Division of tasks

First meeting on 21st May 2021 at https://jitsi.debian.social/yarn2-plugin-apt

Agenda: Division of tasks, VCS repo for the project (salsa js-team native package), License for the project (Apache 2 or LGPL v3? https://licenseuse.org), Expanding scope of adding yarn plugin apt test in autopkgtest-pkg-nodejs (autodep8)

Update yarnpkg using corepack repo https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=980316

Build yarn plugin https://salsa.debian.org/js-team/yarn-plugin-apt

May 2022 - August 2022 Round Progress Report

Corepack packaging:

Blogs 2021

Blogs 2022

Helpful Q & A

To avoid repetition, some of our questions and answers from our mentors are being documented for reference

Q: im trying to add a test from package.json to debian/tests/pkg-js/test. I added this line from package.json

npx mocha --reporter spec --require ts-node/register "./test/**/*.ts"

but im getting this error https://paste.debian.net/1236377

A: you don't need npx when building Debian packages. mocha command is available directly in Debian when mocha installed via apt.

Useful Resources

CategoryDebianDevelopment