Re: LilyPond in Debian

[Urs Liska]

Am 11.09.2017 um 10:41 schrieb David Kastrup:
> Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm investigating Debian again, looking for a new system for me. So far
>> I've done a pretty minimal installation of Debian Buster (current
>> "Testing"), looked for LilyPond and Guile - and was somewhat surprised.
>>
>> Last time I looked I found that the "lilypond" package had been removed
>> from Debian Stretch (which has become the current stable release in the
>> meantime), along with the removal of Guile 1.8.
>>
>> So I was surprised to see that a lilypond package is again available for
>> Buster, albeit only 2.18.2. Further investigation turned out that
>> obviously LilyPond has been reintroduced with Buster, and is also
>> available in Stretch as a backport (see
>> https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=lilypond&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all)
>>
>> Guile 1.8 on the other hand is not available in Stretch nor Buster - but
>> in Sid (unstable branch), with the label "debports".
>>
>> If I'm not mistaken Debian only provides packages that are compiled by
>> them, so LilyPond can only be included when Guile 1.8 is also present.
>> So I'm actually wondering how the "lilypond" package could get into
>> Stretch and Buster.
>>
>> Could someone with more knowledge update me on this?
> It has its own prepackaged Guile-1.8 shared libraries in a private
> directory.  Its executable has been replaced by a shell script that adds
> this directory to the loadpath and then calls the real executable.
>
> Hats off, I guess.  Probably not a perfect fit as a development
> platform, but at least good for running.
>

Yes, indeed better than nothing (sudo apt install lilypond => "package
lilypond has no release candidate").
OTOH it may take some pressure off the need for a "proper" solution ...

Hm, will I be able to get a system where I can build LilyPond again? I'm
really not fluent enough with package management, but could I install
Guile 1.8 from sid and use that for setting up my LilyPond environment?
I really don't want to use an extra virtual machine just for that.
(I don't need step-by-step instructions here, just a confirmation if it
is possible (and maybe a general pointer on how to proceed)

Urs