Codehelp blog

(Sometimes a blog is just somewhere to put stuff you'll otherwise forget.)

dpkg -l |colrm 90|colrm 1 2|grep '^  '|column -t

(There are two spaces in that grep, just in case it doesn't come out right in the final blog rendering.)

For those times when you just want the package list without the fluff - or, as a script that can accept a parameter:

#!/bin/sh

dpkg -l "$*"|colrm 90|colrm 1 2|grep '^  '|sort|column -t

$ ~/scripts/versiontable.sh apt* dpkg*

Could add grep ii as an extra pipe in that (after the initial dpkg -l call) to only list installed versions etc.

$ ~/scripts/versiontable.sh dpkg* apt*

apt              0.7.21

apt-arm-cross    0.7.11

apt-cross        0.13.0

apt-doc          0.7.21

aptitude         0.4.11.11-1+b1

apt-show-source  0.10

apt-utils        0.7.21

dpkg             1.14.26

dpkg-cross       2.5.1

dpkg-dev         1.14.26

dpkg-www         2.54+nmu1

Interesting side-effects though - *foo* is different to "*foo*" or \*foo\*. Might be better to use $@ but that means always needing quote marks for multiple package queries.

Drivel 2.0.4 ("Alive again")
============================

* Improvements:
- Add current patches from Debian and Ubuntu
- Add patches from bugzilla that have accumulated since 2.0.3
- New member of upstream team: Neil Williams
- Add tag support for LiveJournal. Closes #307967

* Translation updates:
- Added Italian translation (Vincenzo Campanella)
- Updated Germann translation (Mario Blättermann)
- Updated Portuguese translation. (Américo Monteiro)
- Updated Canadian English translation. (Adam Weinberger)
- Updated Nepali translation. (Basanta shrestha)
- Updated Portuguese translation. (Miguel Figueiredo)
- Updated Russian translation. (Yuri Kozlov)

Drivel 2.0.4-1 has also arrived in Debian unstable - Ubuntu will update in due course but there's an Ubuntu release to get out before then (I assume).

http://incoming.debian.org/drivel_2.0.4-1_amd64.changes

Description:
drivel - Blogging client for the GNOME desktop
Closes: 465805 521452 521903 522335 522661 523425
Changes:
drivel (2.0.4-1) unstable; urgency=low
.
* New upstream release.
* [INTL:ru] Russian program translation update (Closes: #521452)
* [INTL:pt] Updated Portuguese translation (Closes: #521903)
* Update Standards Version (no changes)
* Drop previous patches and dpatch support, patches implemented
upstream.
* Switch to libcurl4-gnutls-dev instead of libcurl4-openssl-dev
to avoid linked against OpenSSL (Closes: #522335)
* Add LiveJournal tags support (Closes: #465805)
* [INTL:ru] Russian program translation update - added string
(Closes: #522661)
* [INTL:it] New Italian translation (Closes: #523425)
* Add gnome-doc-utils to build-depends

This is a short summary of how I'm currently experimenting with dpkg to generate, check and install TDebs in a pbuilder chroot. Do NOT use my modified version of dpkg outside a chroot!. Also, I don't expect any of this to be useful or usable by anyone not running Debian sid. If you're reading this via an aggregator other than planet.debian.org, please don't try this on your own systems. (Comments complaining that it breaks Ubuntu will be deleted - I'll have good fun laughing at you but the comments will still be deleted.)

The code (such as it is) lives at git.debian.org and it's safe to build the package on the normal system, as long as you install it in the chroot. I actually use a --prefix to allow

sudo make install

to copy the executables into the right places in the chroot. I find that quite simple to do via the terminal plugin in Anjuta.

Building a TDeb for the first time:

I expect lots of comments here, this probably won't be entirely workable initially, but the idea is to get the source for a package that has translations, that is easy and quick to build, few build dependencies and one with which you are already familiar. Adapt that package to support a TDeb by adding the relevant Package: to debian/control. All you need to include is: XC-Package-Type: tdeb and ensure that the new package is Architecture: all. Current convention is to call it $sourcepkg-tdeb. (Yes, although TDebs are initially going to be for debconf support in Squeeze+1, initial experimentation is with program translations because it's easier.)

/usr/share/emdebian-tools/dh_gentdeb (from the emdebian-tdeb package in Debian) can help prepare the translation files by creating the debian/$sourcepkg-tdeb/ directory hierarchy but you could also do the same by installing all /usr/share/locale/ content in the tdeb package in debian/rules or debian/foo.install. Remember to remove the translation files from any other package.

Building the TDeb should be as simple as:

dpkg-deb --tdeb -b debian/pilot-qof-tdeb ../pilot-qof-tdeb_0.1.7-1_all.tdeb


You do not need to build the source itself but you may want to do that for other reasons. You can then view the contents using:

dpkg-deb -c ../pilot-qof-locale_0.1.7-1_all.tdeb

or

ar -t ../pilot-qof-locale_0.1.7-1_all.tdeb

Install (dpkg -i ../pilot-qof-locale_0.1.7-1_all.tdeb --lang vi) used to work but I've messed up something there, so any ideas on what I've done wrong would be appreciated.

Subverting git with subversion

Yes, I'm a git phobe. Don't flame me and any comments about my git foo by the git fanboy contingent will also be deleted.

I have to use git for this because the dpkg maintainers like git. That doesn't mean I have to like it or even use it. So, I use a local SVN repository. I do all my development work against that (because it's more friendly) and make local commits to it. Then, when I'm reasonably happy with the results, I copy the files across into git, fake a git commit message that more or less covers the real changes and use a script to "push" git to do what I intended. If (more likely, when) git decides to be all unfriendly and throw a completely unintelligible error message, I simply rm -rf git/path/, check out a fresh git, copy the real stuff from SVN and send the lot back as a single commit to git. Hah!

(For those who are not so blinded by their git obsession that they may actually care about my process, I can only say that local SVN is blisteringly fast and never, ever, fails.)

Hmm, this is a little story of how to break Xorg in Sid and then use Squeeze to fix it.

I never liked having extraneous packages, so I don't like xserver-xorg-video-all - I just want xserver-xorg-video-foo (nv in the case of the laptop in question). So the latest upgrade from Sid wanted to bring in all the video (and input) packages and I tried to work around it. Hmm. Turns out, I could use -o Apt::Get::Download-Only=true and dpkg --force-depends -i to get the packages I wanted. The thing is, one of the modules needs to be installed for the dependency on xserver-xorg-video-all to be met by a Provides. It's the Provides that has changed. So I installed xserver-xorg-video-nv by force and logged out. Oops. No X.

Various other hacks later, I tried to build xserver-xorg-video-vga (which I thought was probably the missing one) only for the build to fail on amd64. Brokenness. Hmm. (it doesn't build in a pbuilder chroot either, bug filed.)

I've always run a pure Sid install but I know people who mix Sid and Squeeze, so I added a Squeeze source and started doing a lot of apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-foo/testing - again concentrating on just the video packages I need. Aha! X restarted - umm, but the mouse didn't move and the keyboard did nothing in X, only in the existing terminal. Repeat process with xserver-xorg-input-all/testing and I'm back in a working X. Phew.

My own fault, I know (I shouldn't have forced the package installations, should have just waited for the complete dependency chain to be available), but it's nice to get out of this mess so easily.

When bugs in launchpad are forwarded to some upstream bug tracker, please put a comment on those upstream bug reports specifying which Ubuntu bug is related to the upstream bug.

That way, I can fix those Ubuntu bugs when the upstream release containing the bug fixes is uploaded to Debian and then migrated into Ubuntu.

All it needs is a one-liner:

This is Ubuntu bug #123456 https://bugs.launchpad.net/....

After numerous frustrations being unable to get an SVN account at svn.gnome.org, drivel upstream has moved back to SourceForge and I've been folding the Debian and Ubuntu changes into the upstream for the next release. I'm also feeding the translations upstream as 2.0.3 was released with an outdated POT file and all the PO files are out of date. debian-i18n has already been asked for updates - more will follow.

(Yes, this is actually just a test post of drivel 2.0.4 - why not?)

Booked my flights now:

12:10 23 Jul 15:30 23 Jul Heathrow Madrid BA7061 Iberia
15:25 31 Jul 16:45 31 Jul Madrid Heathrow BA7060 Iberia

However, that's not even half of it - it's not even a quarter. I've got 5 connections to make, each way. taxi to plane to coach to plane to metro to train. The one that really messes things up is the coach between London Gatwick and London Heathrow.

If it all works, I'll see you all at DebConf - if it breaks, it'll get expensive.