maintaining simple packages / need for guidance

[Symbioxy]

Hi,

I am looking for help (maybe a mentor) to learn how to create / maintain packages (lang: english or french)
I have basic development & console skills, and as a start, I would just like to participate into maintaining simple packages to help the distribution to have recent versions.

I got motivated by this case:
I use ganttproject, a simple java program for project scheduling.
The version in cauldron is more than 9 months old and I could not read a file that was built with a more recent version on a different system.
Following the guidelines on the wiki, I manage to build a new rpm based on the previous package and the new source code, just updating the spec file.
I installed it and it works fine on my system (cauldron): file association ok, menu ok.

I also use xmind, another java program for mind mapping. As there is no current package for Mageia, I used a package from PCLinuxOS to build one for Mageia.
I installed it and it works.

Now I don't know how go on with these packages, I cannot find more guidance in the wiki (I mostly used Packagers RPM tutorial).
For instance:
- I may need help to clean the various warnings issued by rpmlint. Should i create a new post in the forum for each package and post the various warnings?
- It is only creating an rpm for my arch (x86_64). Am I supposed to also create packages for i586, and how? as it is java, is it possible to create a noarch package?
- How can I submit it to cauldron for other people to test?

Thanks a lot,

[jkerr82508]

I think that this wiki page is probably a good place to start: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Becoming_a_Mageia_Packager
especially https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Becoming_a_M ... g_a_mentor

Jim

PS: There are many wiki pages for and about packagers and packaging: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Category:Packaging

[doktor5000]

- I may need help to clean the various warnings issued by rpmlint. Should i create a new post in the forum for each package and post the various warnings?
- It is only creating an rpm for my arch (x86_64). Am I supposed to also create packages for i586, and how? as it is java, is it possible to create a noarch package?
- How can I submit it to cauldron for other people to test?

Hi there and welcome to our forums

For your questions in general, you might want to consider joining the mentoring program.

For your three questions in particular, those can be answered here.

- Always use rpmlint -i on the binary and source packages, this will give you a good explanation what the problem is about
some warnings are bogus, like most of the spellcheck things (but often quite funny )
it should be mentioned in the wiki, but please don't forget to install rpmlint-mageia-policy
There are also quite a few already explained at https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Packaging_pr ... eck_errors
If that still leaves some check results open, ask them in a new thread, but only one thread for rpmlint results in general.

- yes, yes, with iurt, yes
By default rpmbuild will compile for your current architecture. If you want to also build packages for another architecture directly in one run, you would need to set up cross-compiling andstuff, that would be quite difficult. Instead, use iurt, it dynamically creates a chroot and rebuild the packages inside there (this is also how our buildsystem works)
Check https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Packagers_Me ... Howto#iurt for some examples, and aks if you still have questions. noarch packages (mostly if the packages do not contain any binaries, or data which can be shared between i586 and x86_64 - java may be something different, but could be possible) can be done by adding BuildArch: noarch to the preamble(header) of the spec.

- by becoming a packager, as noted in https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Becoming_a_M ... a_packager
in theory i could mentor you - i'm mostly short on time, but we may give it a try.