Packages in Debian/Ubuntu

[Glowing Fish]

Please excuse my ignorance on this, but I have a few questions, and a suggestion, for Wesnoth on Debian, Ubuntu, and other apt-get based distributions.

Wesnoth is packaged up and put into the appropriate repositories by someone at the Debian and Ubuntu organizations, and this is done (like all binaries) separate from the Wesnoth project, if I understand things correctly. But I imagine that whoever is maintaining the packages there is also somehow affiliated with the Wesnoth project, and is perhaps even a reader of this forum.

I also wonder, would it be possible to split Wesnoth into two different lines of packages, wesnoth-testing and wesnoth-stable ? Back when Wesnoth was first included, all versions were more or less testing versions. But since 1.0, there is two separate lines, which in a lot of ways are separate programs. Would it make sense to have these as separate packages? Would it be way more work than it is worth?

[Boucman]

the wesnoth packager is actually one of our release manager, so don't worry about debian package being separated...


I disagreee that 1.2 and 1.3 need different packages. 1.3 is in experimental, if you want it..

and debian has the stable version which sounds normal to me...

[turin]

I would think that debian testing at least (as opposed to debian stable) would have wesnoth-testing...

[Glowing Fish]

I would think that debian testing at least (as opposed to debian stable) would have wesnoth-testing...

Well, with Ubuntu, Hardy Heron has 1.2.8

But my idea is that stable and testing Wesnoth would be separated from stable and testing distros. So you could have testing Wesnoth on stable Debian, or vice-versa. Or you could have both testing and stable Wesnoth on one system.

[Rhonda]

Please excuse my ignorance on this, but I have a few questions, and a suggestion, for Wesnoth on Debian, Ubuntu, and other apt-get based distributions.

Wesnoth is packaged up and put into the appropriate repositories by someone at the Debian and Ubuntu organizations, and this is done (like all binaries) separate from the Wesnoth project, if I understand things correctly. But I imagine that whoever is maintaining the packages there is also somehow affiliated with the Wesnoth project, and is perhaps even a reader of this forum.

Only reading here if someone points me directly to it (thanks, Ivanovic ) But I wonder a bit why you haven't contacted the maintainers directly instead of going to the forum? Because, well, you shouldn't assume that one is reading forums all day long... but a direct email can work wonders.

Somehow affiliated is a nice word. Packagers in general get notified directly via email from the wesnoth release managers about new releases - which I highy appreciate and unfortunately isn't that common in other projects...

I also wonder, would it be possible to split Wesnoth into two different lines of packages, wesnoth-testing and wesnoth-stable ? Back when Wesnoth was first included, all versions were more or less testing versions. But since 1.0, there is two separate lines, which in a lot of ways are separate programs. Would it make sense to have these as separate packages? Would it be way more work than it is worth?

Are you talking about something like http://packages.debian.org/unstable/wesnoth (tracking 1.2 branch) and http://packages.debian.org/experimental/wesnoth (tracking 1.3 branch)?

[Rhonda]

But my idea is that stable and testing Wesnoth would be separated from stable and testing distros. So you could have testing Wesnoth on stable Debian, or vice-versa. Or you could have both testing and stable Wesnoth on one system.

That's not really possible. You can't push new upstream versions into stable - that's totally opposed to the idea of stable. A package version in stable will receive only security fixes and fixes for serious bugs. A new development version isn't able to make it into there, at all. That's why I chose to upload the development version to experimental, this is an extra staging area for testing out things that makes sure it won't flow into any stable release.

Boucman, btw., I know you are refering to Isaac, but he has been neither the "wesnoth packager" for quite a while nor "our release manager". He did a great job while he was doing it, and yes, is still listed as package manager for Debian, and more than willing to come back, but currently he puts his efforts somewhere else, for long enough that you should had been able to notice that.

[isaac]

Boucman, btw., I know you are refering to Isaac, but he has been neither the "wesnoth packager" for quite a while nor "our release manager". He did a great job while he was doing it, and yes, is still listed as package manager for Debian, and more than willing to come back, but currently he puts his efforts somewhere else, for long enough that you should had been able to notice that.

Right, I have to admit I am not around that much lately