Chapter 4. Source packages

20

When specifying the set of build time dependencies, one should list only those packages ex 

plicitly required by the build. It is not necessary to list packages which are required merely

because some other package in the list of build time dependencies depends on them.

3

If build time dependencies are specified, it must be possible to build the package and pro 

duce working binaries on a system with only essential and build essential packages installed

and also those required to satisfy the build time relationships (including any implied relation 

ships). In particular, this means that version clauses should be used rigorously in build time

relationships so that one cannot produce bad or inconsistently configured packages when the

relationships are properly satisfied.

`Declaring relationships between packages' on page

45

explains the technical details.

4.3 Changes to the upstream sources

If changes to the source code are made that are not specific to the needs of the Debian system,

they should be sent to the upstream authors in whatever form they prefer so as to be included

in the upstream version of the package.

If you need to configure the package differently for Debian or for Linux, and the upstream

source doesn't provide a way to do so, you should add such configuration facilities (for exam 

ple, a new

autoconf

test or

#define

) and send the patch to the upstream authors, with the

default set to the way they originally had it. You can then easily override the default in your

debian/rules

or wherever is appropriate.

You should make sure that the

configure

utility detects the correct architecture specification

string (refer to `Architecture specification strings' on page

89

for details).

If you need to edit a

Makefile

where GNU style

configure

scripts are used, you should edit

the

.in

files rather than editing the

Makefile

directly. This allows the user to reconfigure the

package if necessary. You should not configure the package and edit the generated

Makefile

!

This makes it impossible for someone else to later reconfigure the package without losing the

changes you made.

control that the policy documents do).

  Having a separate package allows one to install the build essential packages on a machine, as well as allow 

ing other packages such as tasks to require installation of the build essential packages using the depends

relation.

  The separate package allows bug reports against the list to be categorized separately from the policy man 

agement process in the BTS.

3

The reason for this is that dependencies change, and you should list all those packages, and only those

packages that you need directly. What others need is their business. For example, if you only link against

libimlib

, you will need to build depend on

libimlib2 dev

but not against any

libjpeg*

packages, even

though

libimlib2 dev

currently depends on them: installation of

libimlib2 dev

will automatically ensure

that all of its run time dependencies are satisfied.