[Resolvconf-devel] What do we need to do to make the Ubuntu version?

[Thomas Hood]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 09:01, Sander van Grieken
<sander at outrightsolutions.nl> wrote:
> I have discussed the process with Ubuntu maintainers, and the preference is
> to do as much as possible in debian. I will test the stuff as is in ubuntu
> and if we run into an unavoidable delta between ubuntu and debian I will
> notify Mathieu, he will initiate a merge from the latest debian git, and I
> will branch of that latest merge, and commit the changes needed in my
> branch. So for now I will work based from debian git and test against ubuntu
> bleeding.


I am not sure I understand the plan.  Yes, of course we will minimize
the differences and do as much as is reasonable in the base (Debian)
package.  But the current Debian package will certainly not work
properly on Ubuntu.  The Ubuntu version has to differ from the Debian
version.

1. The transition to /run is from /var/run/ and not from
/lib/init/rw/, so the maintainer scripts have to be patched
2. /sbin/resolvconf has to exit if /etc/resolv.conf is not a symlink
3. Ubuntu changelog entries have to be added

To make #1 easier I will modify the maintainer scripts to use a
variable instead of the hard-coded path.  But the Ubuntu patch should
still change the variable assignment line.

#2 is the case because some Ubuntu developer in the past thought it
would be a good idea not to give the administrator the freedom to
install resolvconf and still use a static /etc/resolv.conf.  (Yes,
that does make sense.)  Aforementioned Ubuntu developer was concerned
about misbehaving packages that clobber resolvconf's /etc/resolv.conf
symlink.  He didn't feel inclined to fix the bugs in the misbehaving
packages but thought it appropriate to modify resolvconf so that it
doesn't work at all when a misbehaving package clobbers the symlink.
How this can be considered an improvement escapes my feeble attempts
at understanding, but not being an Ubuntu developer I bow to the
decisions made by Ubuntu developers and carry their mods forward.

The procedure you propose (merging Debian changes into the Ubuntu
version, then hacking the latter) sounds unnecessarily complex.

Here's what I propose.

In a few weeks we simulataneously release Debian resolvconf 1.63 and
Ubuntu resolvconf 1.63ubuntu1.  The Debian version will include
changes made to minimize the size of the Ubuntu patch.  (I have just
made one change in git, for example: I bumped the version of the
dependency on initscripts to 2.88dsf-13.10, the version of the package
in oneiric.)

In the meantime I will create 1.62ubuntuX packages and upload them to
my PPA: ppa:jdthood/resolvconf.  We invite people to test these
packages and fix bugs in them before going ahead with the 1.63
release.

Finally Marco releases from git and we mail a patch to Mathieu for the
corresponding Ubuntu version.  He can see to it that 1.63+patch gets
imported into Ubuntu's SCM.
-- 
Thomas