Diploma exams are calling: Please read if you want to NMU my packages

Because my diploma exams are getting nearer I have to reduce my contribution to the Debian project for the next two months (up to mid/end of May). There is fortunately currently not much to do for me and also no need to NMU my packages. But please read the following notes, if you (still) think there is a reason for a NMU:

GCC 4.3 transition

Done. All related packages have been fixed. My sponsor just needs to upload psicode to fix the last outstanding bug.

PS: Also the build-twice-in-a-row release goal will be reached by the upload of the apbs update by my sponsor.

gfortran transition

Almost done. mpqc already reached the buildds. ghemical has been uploaded, but waits for mopac7 and libghemical which are in NEW because of the new library names.

apbs and psicode already have been transitioned.

Other bugs

Ok, I’ve closed almost all relevant bugs in my packages. There are a few outstanding bugs that should be examined for Lenny and can be fixed in NMUs - preferable via delayed NMU queue and an information to the debichem group:

#420795 chemical-mime-data: Unknown media type in type chemical/x-*

Upstream bug tracker for shared-mime-info contains some more information, how to deal with this. Patches/ideas welcome.

#438694 gabedit: Crashes when loading any XYZ format file

Looks tricky. Maybe an OpenGL issue related to some video card drivers. Not sure.

#442223 openbabel: some connect information lost when convert from pdb to txyz

Nothing examined yet to solve this bug.

#464867 extrema: conflicts with psi3 package.

Hope, my team will cover this asap.

#465723 mopac7 — please do not use g2c.

There is currently a workaround using f2c to solve this bug. But MOPAC7 has been written in FORTRAN and we can use gfortran and drop f2c completely. See the report for more information. This is something I would like to see in Lenny.

For the xmlto package it was planned to add the dblatex toolchain for PDF/PS/DVI creation because passivetex will very probably never have a comeback in Debian and docbook-xsl/fop is not fully main and cannot create DVI output. In the case you want to help, feel free to add this feature by NMU to experimental (maybe with version 0.0.21~dblatexX.Y). A first patch is available in bug report #416622.

New upstream releases

It is possible that there will be a new upstream release for docbook-xsl in the near future. DO NOT consider uploading it by NMU if you did not test it! This upcoming release ships manpage stylesheets which have been rewritten in large parts. So regressions can be expected. Fortunately Michael Smith and me agreed that we should test it carefully, before the release is done. Unfortunately I will not have the time to do it. So if you consider uploading it, please get in contact with Michael (xmldoc) and offer your help testing it. He added (and I hope many Debian packagers and packaging groups will like that) some kind of regressions tests. These tests build the manpages from several Debian packages: e.g. samba, apt, aptitude, git, fglrx and some more. There are further some new supported features, that should be added to the manpage example shipped with the Debian package. I also planned to split the source package (atm, docbook-xsl and docbook-xsl-doc tarballs are merged together for Debian) as soon as docbook-xsl-ns is packaged - which I wanted to do with the next upstream release. So consider all of the above notes if you plan an NMU to upload a new upstream release and in question, mail me and wait for my answer (which will need some days).

In all other cases new upstream releases should be easier to handle.

ITP

All my ITP are delayed. However if you plan to still upload one of these packages, you should consider the following notes:

docbook-xsl-ns

See the above note about docbook-xsl and the source package split.

HTML-XML-Utils

Already in a good shape. But I sent upstream some patches to improve the manpages. Version 4.6 of the html-xml-utils should contain these patches and this version should be uploaded into Debian. With this version, Bert Bos will probably also decide, which prefix will be used for the binaries (they have very generic names atm; the prefix will probably be hx- or hxu-). Waiting for this releaes therefor is IMHO a good choice.

DocBook 5

I already found a problem that need to be addressed in the package: Where to install its catalog? You will see there is already a catalog file in /usr/share/xml/docbook/schema/dtd/ shipped by the docbook-xml. Now I’m not sure what to do here. Upstream ships one catalog file for all supported schemas (RNG, DTD, W3C schema and schematron). So maybe the catalog file can go into /usr/share/xml/docbook/schema/. Really not sure atm. The answer to this question might affect the Debian XML policy and should be made carefully.

QA work/fixes

Several lintian warnings have already been fixed in the SVN repositories used for my packages but have not yet been uploaded.

I really only plan to reduce my work during the preparation and the exams. So whatever you do, please try to make it easy for me to continue my packaging work after the exams :)