F i x X x e R

The last weeks I worked on Debian QA. The goal of Quality Assurance (QA) is to improve Debian where it is needed. Specifically on RC Bugs.

The last weeks I was focused just on my packages but the QA is a very important job to keep to Debian how the better Linux distro on the world.

I have done QA job before (writing man pages or sending some patches), but I decided to do more. First, I chose what kind of bugs I can to solve. I’m a C and C++ expert so I decided to choose some bugs related to those languages.

I focused on the main branch because is the Debian core.

I chose bugs that are related to packages failing with dpkg-shlibdeps “failure: something” messages:

• #456875
  glide: FTBFS: dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libglide.so.2 needed by debian/glide2-bin/usr/lib/glide2/bin/test05 (its RPATH is ”).
• #453794
  afnix: FTBFS: dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libafnix-eng.so.1.5 needed by debian/afnix/usr/lib/afnix/libafnix-net.so.1.5.2 (its RPATH is ”).
• #453795
  am-utils: FTBFS: dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: no dependency information found for debian/libamu4/usr/lib/libamu.so.4 (used by debian/am-utils/usr/sbin/amd).
• #456867
  gnat-4.2: FTBFS: dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libgnat-4.2.so.1 needed by debian/libgnatprj4.2/usr/lib/libgnatprj.so.4.2 (its RPATH is ”).
• #456880
  bulmages: FTBFS: dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libbulmalib.so.1 needed by debian/bulmacont/usr/lib/bulmages/plugins/libregistroiva.so (its RPATH is ”).

All these bugs were fixed. I attached a patch to fix each bug. The maintainers in general accepted my patches (or they based their jobs on them). Were easy to fix them because the problem was basically to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable or well to change the compile order in the packages. Remember that dpkg-shlibdeps calculates shared library dependencies for executables then if you have local dependencies between your owns programs you could have a dpkg-shlibdeps failure if you try to compile a binary before a library that has dependencies with it.

I fixed some other bugs:

• #456349
  zipios++: FTBFS: convert: Command not found

To fix dpkg-shlibdeps errors to check the dpkg-shlibdeps man page in dpkg-dev 1.14.12, it contains explanations of those new failures and suggestion on how to fix them.

I enjoy to do this, I will continue doing this. I see the RC bugs are less but we need to do more hard work.

Fixxxer

One of the things that but have asked to me during these last years is because I use Debian like my favorite distro. There are many definitions and reasons, but I found in one of the many sites that I have visited and that defined perfectly my because:

“Good, it is necessary to understand that Debian, like Linux, has a politician motivation with deep roots in the social movements of the sixties, that is to say, (and it is) it was done by engineer hippies of the alternative. Whereas for many users of Mandrake or Redhat Linux it is only an efficient and reliable operating system that is used from 9 to 18 hours, for “debians” use Linux it comprises of a very personal position for the society and the life. In short, if you are somebody that always has had problems with the authority, frequently questions “why” in situations that are everybody seems obvious to him and it does not please the idea to you to vegetate in a gray world and boring, surely always you have been a Debian but until now you know it”

When I read it, finally I understood what felt, which thought. Use Debian for me is a thought position, is a life form.

Regards

FixXxeR