debian/patches

This page stems from the following discussion on debian-devel in January 2007: [http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/alpine.DEB.1.00.0801250818360.5187@wr-linux02 alpine.DEB.1.00.0801250818360.5187@wr-linux02].

Patch system

Location of the patches

How to inactivate a patch

Accepts diff -u output

Available

Advantage

dpatch

debian/patches

Remove its name from debian/patches/00list

No

Yes ([http://packages.debian.org/dpatch dpatch]

Can do scripting

quilt

debian/patches

Remove its name from debian/patches/series

Yes

Yes ([http://packages.debian.org/quilt quilt]

Can reorder patches

simple-patchsys

debian/patches

Remove its .diff or .patch suffix

Yes

Yes ([http://packages.debian.org/cdbs cdbs]

Simple

wig&pen

?

?

Yes

Not yet

Native to [http://packages.debian.org/dpkg dpkg]

dbs

?

?

?

[http://packages.debian.org/dbs dbs]

?

Future directions

It has been discussed that the profusion of patch systems was making the work of porters, NMUers, security and QA teams difficult, and that some kind of standardisation would be useful. For instance, the systems could be wrapped and one single interface could be provided. Policy could describe how to use rules such as patch and unpatch to provide such a single interface.

Alternatively, it has been proposed to not use patch systems and store this information in version control systems instead.

If a consensus emerges, a [http://dep.debian.net/ Debian enhancement proposal] could be written.