Re: [PATCH] builddeb: introduce variables for control-file customization

[Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>]

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On Fri, 2017-12-01 at 19:34 +0100, Henning Schild wrote:
> Am Fri, 1 Dec 2017 16:51:12 +0000
> schrieb Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>:
> 
> > On Fri, 2017-12-01 at 15:56 +0000, Henning Schild wrote:
> > > The debian packages coming out of "make *deb-pkg" lack some critical
> > > information in the control-files e.g. the "Depends:" field. If one
> > > tries to install a fresh system with such a "linux-image"
> > > debootstrap or multistrap might try to install the kernel before
> > > its deps and the package hooks will fail.  
> > 
> > I assume you're talking about those hook scripts being run while the
> > packages they belong to are only unpacked?  I hadn't thought about
> > this issue, but it seems to me that those hook scripts generally
> > ought to be fixed to handle this case properly.  Most of the packages
> > installing hook scripts for kernel packages are not going to be
> > dependencies of linux-image packages, so it will never be safe for
> > them to assume their package has been fully installed.
> 
> Yes these hook scripts fail when installing the kernel on another
> system. Indeed we seem to have a case where packages installed on the
> build-machine cause install-time deps for the package.

Can you give an example?  I don't see how that would happen.

> In my case the build-machine is pretty minimal but i still want some of
> that i.e. initramfs.
> 
> > > Different debian-based distros use different values for the missing
> > > fields. And the values differ between distro versions as well. So
> > > hardcoding of e.g. "Depends" is not possible.  
> > 
> > The dependencies also depend on the kernel configuration.  (And a
> > custom kernel built with 'make deb-pkg' often won't have any
> > dependencies outside of essential packages.)
> 
> In fact it does not have any at the moment, there is no essential. Or
> maybe that is hidden in debian-magic.
[...]

Essential packages are always installed, which means there is no need
to declare a dependency on them (in fact it is discouraged):
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#dependencies

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
When in doubt, use brute force. - Ken Thompson

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