:1. Preparing the cowbuilder:
============================

  sudo aptitude install cowdancer grep-dctrl wget
  sudo cowbuilder --create --distribution squeeze --basepath /var/cache/pbuilder/testing-base.cow

2. Getting the list of packages to build:
=========================================

  getlist squeeze

Will fetch the Sources.gz for main and contrib of the distribution you
choose and creates two files:

  1. list.squeeze
  2. list.squeeze.i368

The first list contains the name of all packages followed by all
architectures it can be build on. The second list Contains the names of
all packages which can be build on your arch.

3. Setting the rebuild variables:
=================================

The only setting should change is the BASEPATH variable. It must match
the --basepath option you gave.

The other settings BUILDDIR and LOGDIR are optional.

4. Rebuilding the archive
=========================

  rebuild list.squeeze.i386 squeeze

Will attempt to build all packages appearing in list.testing.i368. It will
temporarily build them in $BUILDDIR/$PACKAGE and will use $LOGDIR to create
lock- and logfiles.

NOTES:
======

 - On a machine with more than one processor you can run multiple instances
 of the rebuild script in order to speed up the build process by building
 multiple packages concurrently 
 
 - When building for a different distribution (testing) than the one the host
 system is running (sid) you got to make sure that apt-get source fetches the
 right sources. Otherwise you'll rebuild the packages from sid in a testing 
 environment and get false-positive FTBFS.

--

2007-02-21, Bastian Venthur