Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Current Status (and Wiki Performance)

[dww]

Hello Sam,

Regarding the instructions to only modify a package, are the
instructions in http://www.gnewsense.org/Builder/ModifyingANewPackage
applicable?

If yes, it appears that there is not an automated way to extract the
changes one made and generate the sed script for the gen script file?
I suppose though the manual addition to the gen script would probably
done once and rarely additional times?

Thanks,
Dennis


On Fri, 2016-12-23 at 23:26 -0500, dww wrote:
> Hello Sam,
> 
> If you don't mind, I have some basic questions about using Builder. 
> 
> > > Regarding learning how to use the Builder approach is their some
> > > primer or other learning material from the Debian or other sites?
> > 
> > There's some documentation about Builder on the website [1]. 
> 
> I have been reading this page, buy didn't understand the overall
> workflow.(forced to spend too much time in the Microsoft build world).
> 
> Would you please provide a basic description of the overall process in
> terms of the items that are created on the local machine and the
> relation to external sources of source code and packages?
> 
> Is the procedure creating a local repository of upstream source code and
> build artifacts and gNewSense modified source code and build artifacts
> starting with those from an upstream mirror defined in MIRROR?
> 
> Would you please explain what the different mirrors are (MIRRORLOCAL and
> MIRROR)?  In the text in Step 3 for MIRROR it refers to step 5,  but
> step 5 is about installing certain packages needed to run Builder
> properly.
> 
> In step 4 I think debmirror is used to create a local mirror at location
> in MIRRORLOCAL?  Is this the mirror to which the build from the
> repository generated and updated in steps 6 and 7 is pushed in step 9.
> 
> Or is MIRRORLOCAL the mirror that should be a location on a distribution
> server?
> 
> Does ./do-update actually build binaries from code in the repository or
> I should ask specifically what do debmirror and do-update accomplish?
> 
> (Note)In step 7 should the pushing of changes be done in step 9 not 7?)
> 
> I would appreciate any description of what the different steps do rather
> than just how?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Running Builder needs quite a bit of disk space and takes some time. 
> 
>  Could I run Builder from an external hard drive such as a Western
> Digital WD Elements which would guarantee sufficient disk space?
> 
> I noticed that the in the config file for Builder from the gNewSense
> Savannah repository that BASEDIR and MIRRORLOCAL are in srv in the file
> system. Can this be on an external drive instead?
> 
> > If you're
> > more interested in patching packages, then Builder's gen scripts (e.g.
> > gen-apt) are most interesting. They can be run by themselves as long as
> > you have the config file.
> 
> So basically, patching packages involves creating gen script files with
> basically sed scripts for applying changes to package source files?
> 
> What is the procedure for building and testing the modified packages,
> that is, how are the gen scripts run by themselves along with the config
> file? Is it just run as a bash script?
> > 
> > Builder also allows for Ucclia style patching, except it needs the full
> > package source and not just the debian folder (although it shouldn't be
> > hard to support that too). Both development approaches have their
> > strong and weak points. I'm not yet sure if we're going to use one or
> > the other or both.
> > 
> > Don't hesitate to ask questions. Builder can be daunting at first.
> 
> Thank you.
> Your help would be highly appreciated.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> > 
> > [1]
> > http://www.gnewsense.org/Builder/HowToCreateYourOwnGNULinuxDistribution
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-dev
>