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|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN" "docbookx.dtd">
<!-- the original of this documentation is in pbuilder source tar-ball -->
<book>
<bookinfo>
<date>2003-03-01</date>
<title>pbuilder User's Manual</title>
<abbrev>pbuilder-doc</abbrev>
<subtitle>Usage and operations</subtitle>
<releaseinfo>documentation in progress</releaseinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Junichi</firstname>
<surname>Uekawa</surname>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</bookinfo>
<chapter>
<title>Introducing pbuilder</title>
<sect1 id="aim">
<title>Aims of pbuilder</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> stands for
Personal Builder, and it is a automatic Debian Package Building system
for personal environments.
<command>pbuilder</command> aims to be an
easy-to-setup system
for auto-building Debian packages inside a clean-room
environment, so that it is possible to verify that
a package can be built on most Debian installations.
Clean-room environment is achieved through use of a chroot image,
so that only minimal packages will be installed inside the
chroot.
</para>
<para>
Debian distribution consists of free software
accompanied with source.
The source code within Debian "main" section
must build within Debian "main",
with only the explicitly specified build-dependencies
installed.
</para>
<para>
The aim of pbuilder is very different from other
auto-building systems in that its aim is not in trying to build
as many packages. It does not try to guess
what a package needs, and in most cases it tries the
worst choice of all if there was a choice to be made.
</para>
<para>
In this way, <command>pbuilder</command> tries to ensure
that packages
tested against pbuilder will build in
most Debian environments, hopefully resulting
in a good overall Debian source-buildability.
</para>
<para>
The goal of making Debian buildable from source is
somewhat achieved, and has progressed well.
It is known that Debian 3.0 is not quite
buildable from source, but the next version should
be better.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="usingpbuilder">
<title>Using pbuilder</title>
<sect1 id="creatingbase">
<title>Creating base chroot image</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder create</command>
will create base chroot image.
Distribution code-name needs to be specified with
<command><option>--distribution</option></command>
command-line option.
Usually, "sid" is the proper distribution.
</para>
<para>
<command>debootstrap</command> is used to create
the bare minimum Debian installation,
and then build-essential packages are installed on top
of the minimum installation using <command>apt-get</command>
inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
pbuilder.8 manual page.
Some configuration will be required for <filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename>
for the mirror site
<footnote>
<para>
The mirror site should preferably a local one,
to not to overload the public mirrors with
a lot of access.
</para>
</footnote>
to use, and proxy configuration is probably required to allow access
through HTTP.
See pbuilderrc.5 manual page for details.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Updating base chroot image</title>
<para><command>pbuilder update</command>
will update the chroot image.
It will extract the chroot, invoke <command>apt-get update</command>
and <command>apt-get dist-upgrade</command> inside the
chroot, and then recreate the base tarball.
</para>
<para>
It is possible to switch the distribution which the chroot
tarball is targeted at at this point.
Specify <command><option>--distribution <parameter>sid</parameter></option> <option>--override-config</option></command> to change the distribution
to sid.
<footnote>
<para>However, only upgrading is really supported.</para>
</footnote>
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
pbuilder.8 manual page
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="buildpackagechroot">
<title>Building a package using chroot image</title>
<para>
To build a package inside the chroot, invoke
<command>pbuilder build <option>whatever.dsc</option></command>.
<command>pbuilder</command> will extract
chroot image to a temporal working directory,
and satisfy the build-dependency inside the chroot,
and build the package.
The built packages will be moved to a
directory specified with
<command><option>--buildresult</option></command>
command-line option.
</para>
<para>
<command><option>--basetgz</option></command> option can be
used to specify which chroot image to use.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> will extract a fresh chroot image
created with <command>pbuilder build</command>
and updated with <command>pbuilder update</command>,
and populate the chroot with build-dependency by parsing
debian/control and invoking <command>apt-get</command>.
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
pbuilder.8 manual page
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="pdebuild">
<title>Facilitating Debian Developers from typing, pdebuild</title>
<para>
<command>pdebuild</command> is a little wrapper
script that does the most frequent of all tasks.
A Debian Developer may try to do <command>debuild</command>, and
build a package, inside a Debian source directory.
<command>pdebuild</command> will allow similar
control, and allow package to be built inside the chroot,
to check that the current source tree will build happily
inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
<command>pdebuild</command> calls <command>dpkg-source</command>
to build the source packages, and then invoke
<command>pbuilder</command> on the resulting source package.
However, unlike debuild, the resulting deb files will be
found somewhere in BUILDRESULT directory.
</para>
<para>
See pdebuild.1 manual page for more details.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="configfile">
<title>Configuration Files</title>
<para>
It is possible to specify all settings by command-line
option. However, for convenience it is possible to
use a configuration file.
</para>
<para>
<filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename> and
<filename>${HOME}/.pbuilderrc</filename>
are read in when pbuilder is invoked.
The possible options are documented in
pbuilderrc.5 documentation.
</para>
<para>
It is useful when switching between configuration files for
different distributions.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nonrootchroot">
<title>Building packages as non-root inside the chroot</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> requires full root privilege
when it is satisfying the build-dependency but most packages do not
need root privilege, or even do not build when they are root.
<command>pbuilder </command> can create a user only used
inside <command>pbuilder </command> and use that user id when
building, and use <command>fakeroot</command> command
when root privilege is required.
</para>
<para>
BUILDUSERID needs should be set to a value for a user id that
does not exist on the system, so that it is harder for
packages that are being built with
<command>pbuilder</command> to do harm to the main system.
BUILDUSERNAME needs to be set to some value, and
pbuilder will use that user id and use fakeroot for building.
</para>
<para>
Using the fakerooting method, pbuilder will run with
root privilege when it is required, when installing
packages to the chroot.
</para>
<para>
To be able to invoke pbuilder without being
root, you need to use user-mode-linux, as explained
in <xref linkend="pbuilder-uml"/>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="backporting">
<title>Using pbuilder for back-porting</title>
<para>
pbuilder can be used for back-porting software from
the latest Debian distribution to
older stable distribution, by using a chroot that contains
image of older distribution, and building packages inside the
chroot.
There are several points to consider, and due to the following reasons,
automatic back-porting is usually not possible, and
manual interaction is required:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Build-Dependency in stable may not be enough to build a package in unstable distribution, so package may need more than what exists in stable</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Stable distribution may have bugs that have been fixed in unstable that needs to be worked around.</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Package in unstable distribution may have problem building even for unstable.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="massbuild">
<title>Mass-building packages</title>
<para>
pbuilder can be automated, because its operations are
non-interactive.
It is possible to run pbuilder through multiple packages
non-interactively.
There are several such scripts known to exist.
Junichi Uekawa has been running such script since 2001,
and has been filing bugs on packages that fail the
test of pbuilder. There were several problems with auto-building:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Build-Dependency needs to install non-interactively, but
some packages are so broken that they cannot install
without interaction (like postgresql)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>When a library package breaks, or gcc/gcj/g++ breaks,
or even bison, a large number of build failure are reported.
(gcj-3.0 which had no "javac", bison which got more strict, etc.)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some people were quite hostile against build failure reports.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
But most of these problems are now getting solved.
Only about 10% of Debian now fail to build from source (29 Dec 2002).
</para>
<para>
A script that was used by Junichi Uekawa is now included in
pbuilder distribution, as <command>pbuildd.sh</command>.
It is available in <filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/pbuildd/</filename>
and its configuration is in <filename>/etc/pbuilder/pbuildd-config.sh</filename>.
It should be easy enough to set up for people who are used to
pbuilder. It has been running for quite a while, and it should be
possible to set the application up on your system also.
However, it is a new introduction, and please file bugs
to the Debian BTS if you know of possible problems,
or improved on the script considerably.
</para>
<para>
To set up pbuildd, there are some points to be aware of.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>A file <filename>./avoidlist</filename> needs to be available with the list of packages to avoid building. </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>It will try building anything, even packages that are not aimed for your architecture</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Because you are running random build scripts, it is better to use
fakeroot option of pbuilder, to avoid running build in root privilege</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Because not all builds are guaranteed to finish in a finite time,
setting timeout is probably necessary, or build may stall with
a bad build</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Some packages require a lot of disk space,
around 2GB seems to be quite sufficient for the time being.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Auto-backporting scripts</title>
<para>
There are some people who use pbuilder to automatically back-port
a subset of packages to the stable distribution.
</para>
<para>
I would like some information on how people are doing it,
I would appreciate any feedback or information on
how you are doing, or any examples.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="autotesting">
<title>Using pbuilder for automated testing of packages</title>
<para>
pbuilder can be used for automated testing of packages.
It has the feature of allowing hooks to be placed,
and these hooks can try to install packages inside
the chroot, or run them, or whatever else that
can be done. Some known tests and ideas:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Automatic install-remove-upgrade-remove-install-purge-upgrade-purge testsuite (distributed as an example)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Automatically running lintian/linda (distributed as an example in
<filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/B90linda</filename>)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Automatic debian-test of the package?</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="altcompiler">
<title>Using pbuilder for testing build with alternate compilers</title>
<para>
Most packages are compiled with <command>gcc</command>
or <command>g++</command>
and using the default compiler version, which was gcc 2.95 for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (i386).
However, Debian 3.0 was distributed with other compilers, and provided
binaries such as <command>gcc-3.2</command> for gcc compiler
version 3.2.
It was therefore possible to try compiling packages against different
compiler versions.
<command>pentium-builder</command> provides an infrastructure for
using different compiler for building packages than the default gcc, by
becoming a wrapper script called gcc, that calls the real gcc.
To use <command>pentium-builder</command> in <command>pbuilder</command>, it is possible to set up the
following in the configuration:
<screen>
EXTRAPACKAGES="pentium-builder gcc-3.2 g++-3.2"
export DEBIAN_BUILDARCH=athlon
export DEBIAN_BUILDGCCVER=3.2
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It will instruct <command>pbuilder</command> to install <command>pentium-builder</command> package
and also the GCC 3.2 compiler packages inside the chroot,
and set the environment variables required for
<command>pentium-builder</command> to function.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="faq">
<title>Frequently asked questions</title>
<para>
Here, known problems and frequently asked questions are
documented. This portion was initially available in README.Debian
file, but moved into here.
</para>
<sect1>
<title>pbuilder create fails</title>
<para>
It often happens that pbuilder cannot create latest chroot.
Try upgrading pbuilder and debootstrap.
It is currently only possible to create software that handles the
past. Future prediction features may be added later when
we can successfully handle the past.
</para>
<para>
There are people who occasionally backport debootstrap to stable
versions, hunt for them.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Notes on usage of $TMPDIR</title>
<para>
If you are setting $TMPDIR to an unusual value, of other than
<filename>/tmp</filename>, you will find that some errors may occur inside the chroot,
such as <command>dpkg-source</command> failing.
</para>
<para>There are two options, you may install a hook to create that
directory, or set
<screen>export TMPDIR=/tmp</screen>
in pbuilderrc. Take your pick.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Using special apt sources list other than the default</title>
<para>
If you have some very specialized requirements on your
apt setup inside pbuilder,
it is possible to specify that through
<command><option>--othermirror</option></command>
option.
Try something like:
<command><option>--othermirror "deb http://local/mirror stable main|deb-src http://local/source/repository ./"</option></command>
</para>
<para>
To use the local filesystem instead of http, it is necessary to do
bind-mounting.
<command><option>--bindmounts</option></command>
is a command-line option useful for such cases.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>How to get pbuilder to run apt-get update before trying to satisfy build-dependency</title>
<para>
You can use hook scripts for this.
D scripts are run before satisfying build-dependency.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Different bash prompts inside pbuilder login</title>
<para>
To make distinguishing bash prompts inside pbuilder
easier, it is possible to set environmental variables such as PS1
inside <filename>pbuilderrc</filename>
</para>
<screen>
export PS1="pbuild chroot 32165 # "
</screen>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Using /var/cache/apt/archives for package cache</title>
<para>
For the help of low-bandwidth systems,
it is possible to use <filename>/var/cache/apt/archives</filename> as the
package cache.
Just specify it instead of the default <filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/aptcache</filename>.
</para>
<para>
It is however not possible to do so currently with user-mode-linux
version of pbuilder, because <filename>/var/cache/apt/archives</filename>
is usually only writable as root.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="woodybackport">
<title>pbuilder backported to stable Debian releases</title>
<para>
It is known that Brian May does a backport of
pbuilder, available at:
<screen>deb http://www.microcomaustralia.com.au/debian/ woody main</screen>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="LOGNAME">
<title>Warning on LOGNAME not being defined</title>
<para>
You might see a lot of warning messages when running pbuilder.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
dpkg-genchanges: warning: no utmp entry available and LOGNAME not defined; using uid of process (1234)
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It is currently safe to ignore this warning message.
Please report back if you find any problem with having LOGNAME unset.
Setting LOGNAME caused a few problems when invoking chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nobuildconflictessential">
<title>Cannot Build-conflict against an essential package</title>
<para>
pbuilder does not currently allow Build-Conflicts against
essential packages.
It should be obvious that essential packages should not be
removed from a working Debian system, and a source
package should not try to force removal of such packages
to people building the package.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Avoiding the "ln: Invalid cross-device link" message</title>
<para>
By default, pbuilder uses hard links to manage pbuilder package cache.
It is not possible to make hard links across different devices;
and thus this error will occur, depending on your set up.
If this happens, set <screen>APTCACHEHARDLINK=no</screen>
in your pbuilderrc file.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="otheruse">
<title>Other uses of pbuilder</title>
<sect1 id="chroot">
<title>Using pbuilder for small experiments</title>
<para>
There are cases when some small experimenting is required, and
do not want to damage the main system,
like installing experimental library packages,
or compiling with experimental compilers.
For such cases, <command>pbuilder login</command> command is available.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder login </command> is a debugging feature for
pbuilder itself, but it also allows users to have a temporal chroot.
</para>
<para>
Note that chroot is cleaned after logging out of the shell,
and mounting file systems inside it is considered harmful.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Running little programs inside the chroot</title>
<para>
To facilitate using pbuilder for other uses,
<command>pbuilder execute</command> is available.
<command>pbuilder execute </command> will take a script
specified in the command-line argument, and
invoke the script inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
The script can be useful for sequence of operations such as
installing ssh and adding a new user inside the chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="experimental">
<title>Experimental or wish list features of pbuilder</title>
<para>
There are some advanced features, above that of the
basic feature of pbuilder, for some specific purposes.
</para>
<sect1 id="pbuilder-uml">
<title>Using User-mode-linux</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder-uml</command> exists.
Invoking that command instead of <command>pbuilder</command>
it is possible to use user-mode-linux.
The advantage of using user-mode-linux is that
it does not require root privilege to run,
and it does Copy-on-write, which is probably much faster than
conventional pbuilder method.
</para>
<para>
The problem is that this relies on User-mode-linux
which is a relatively new project, and has not quite
matured, as opposed to conventional pbuilder which rely
on <command>chroot</command> and <command>tar</command>
and <command>gzip</command>, which are known to work
on most Unix systems.
However, <command>pbuilder-uml</command> uses COW method for
file access, and it is so much more faster than pbuilder
when building most packages.
</para>
<para>
It has been verified that pbuilder-uml works,
as of version 0.59.
And since then, pbuilder-uml has seen a rapid evolution.
The configuration of pbuilder-uml goes in two steps:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Configuration of rootstrap</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Configuration of pbuilder-uml</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<sect2 id="rootstrap">
<title>Configuring rootstrap</title>
<para>
<command>rootstrap</command> is a program that
is a wrapper to debootstrap, creating a Debian disk image inside
UML.
To configure rootstrap, there are several requirements.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>install rootstrap package</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>add the user to uml-net group to allow access to network
<screen>
adduser dancer uml-net
</screen></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Check that compile supports tun/tap interface,
and recompile the kernel if necessary
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set up /etc/rootstrap/rootstrap.conf, for example,
if the current host is 192.168.1.2, changing following
entries to something like this seems to work.
<screen>
transport=tuntap
interface=eth0
gateway=192.168.1.1
mirror=http://192.168.1.2:8081/debian
host=192.168.1.198
uml=192.168.1.199
netmask=255.255.255.0
</screen>
Some experimentation with configuration and running
<command>rootstrap ~/test.uml</command> to actually
test it would be handy.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="pbuilderumlconfig">
<title>Configuring pbuilder-uml</title>
<para>
The following needs to happen:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>install pbuilder-uml package</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Set configuration file <filename>/etc/pbuilder/pbuilder-uml.conf</filename> as follows
<screen>
MY_ETH0=tuntap,,,192.168.1.198
UML_IP=192.168.1.199
UML_NETMASK=255.255.255.0
UML_NETWORK=192.168.1.0
UML_BROADCAST=255.255.255.255
UML_GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
PBUILDER_UML_IMAGE="/home/dancer/uml-image"
</screen>
and it needs to match rootstrap configuration.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Run <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux create --distribution sid</command> to create the image</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Try running <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux build </command></para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="consideruml">
<title>Considerations for running pbuilder-uml</title>
<para>
pbuilder-user-mode-linux emulates most of pbuilder, but there
are some differences.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
pbuilder-user-mode-linux does not support all options of pbuilder
properly yet. This is a problem, and will be addressed as
specific areas are discovered.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
/tmp is handled differently inside pbuilder-uml.
In pbuilder-uml, /tmp is mounted as tmpfs inside UML,
so accessing files under /tmp outside the user-mode-linux
does not work.
It affects options like
<command><option>--configfile</option></command>.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="paralleluml">
<title>Parallel running of pbuilder-user-mode-linux</title>
<para>
To run pbuilder-uml parallel on a system, there are a few things
to bear in mind.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>create and update methods must not be ran when build is in progress, or COW file will be invalid</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>UML processes that are running in parallel needs to have
different IP addresses.
So, something like the following will work,
<command>for IP in 102 103 104 105; do xterm -e pbuilder-user-mode-linux build --uml-ip 192.168.0.$IP 20030107/whizzytex_1.1.1-1.dsc& done
</command>
but just trying to run <command>pbuilder-uml</command>
several times will result in failure to access the network.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="pbuilderumlwrap">
<title>Using pbuilder-uml as a wrapper script to start up virtual machine</title>
<para>
It is possible to use pbuilder-uml for other uses than just building Debian
packages.
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux login</command>
will let a user use a shell inside the user-mode-linux using the
pbuilder base image,
and <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux execute</command> will
allow the user to execute a script inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
You can use the script to install ssh and add a new user,
so that it is possible to access inside the UML through ssh.
</para>
<para>
Note that it is not possible to use a script from
<filename>/tmp</filename> due to the way pbuilder-uml mounts
tmpfs at <filename>/tmp</filename>.
</para>
<para>
The following is an example script that may be useful in starting a sshd
inside uml.
</para>
<screen>
#!/bin/bash
apt-get install -y ssh xbase-clients xterm
echo "enter root password"
passwd
cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config{,-}
cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config- | sed 's/X11Forwarding.*/X11Forwarding yes/' > /etc/ssh/sshd_config
/etc/init.d/ssh restart
ifconfig
echo "Hit enter to finish"
read
</screen>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="lvm">
<title>Using LVM</title>
<para>
LVM has snapshot function that features Copy-on-write images.
That could be used for pbuilder just it can be used for
user-mode-linux pbuilder port.
It may prove to be faster, but it is not implemented yet,
and so no measurement has been made, yet.
</para>
<para>
Since user-mode-linux port seems to be more interesting,
this is abandoned.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="withouttargz">
<title>Using pbuilder without tar.gz</title>
<para>
<command><option>--no-targz</option></command>
option of <command>pbuilder</command>
will allow usage of pbuilder in a different way
to conventional usage.
It will try to use existing chroot,
and will not try to clean up after
working on it.
It is an operation mode more like
<command>sbuild</command>.
</para>
<para>
It should be possible to create chroot images
for <command>dchroot</command> with following commands:
<screen>
# pbuilder create --distribution potato --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/potato
# pbuilder create --distribution woody --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/woody
# pbuilder create --distribution sid --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/sid
</screen>
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Minor details</title>
<sect1>
<title>Documentation history </title>
<para>
This document is started on 28 Dec 2002 by
Junichi Uekawa, trying to document what is known
about pbuilder.
</para>
<para>
This documentation is available from pbuilder source tarball,
and from CVS repository of pbuilder (which might not be
public yet now).
A copy of this documentation can be found in
<ulink url="http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/pbuilder-doc/pbuilder-doc.html">Netfort page for pbuilder</ulink>.
The homepage for pbuilder is
<ulink url="http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/pbuilder.html">
http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/pbuilder.html
</ulink>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Inaccurate Background of pbuilder</title>
<para>
The following is most possibly inaccurate account of how
pbuilder happened to come, and other attempts to
make something like pbuilder to happen.
This part of document was originally in AUTHORS file,
to give credit to those who existed before pbuilder.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>The Time Before pbuilder</title>
<para>
There were dbuild, which was a shell script to build
Debian packages from source. Lars Wirzenius wrote that
script, and it was good, short, and simple (probably).
There was nothing like build-depends then (I think), and it was simple.
It could have been improved, I don't have the source off-hand.
</para>
<para>
debbuild was probably written by James Troup. I don't know it
because I have never seen the actual code, I could only find some
references to it on the net, and mailing list logs.
</para>
<para>
sbuild is a perl script to build Debian package from source.
It parses Build-Dependency, and performs other misc checks,
and has a lot of hacks to actually get things building,
including a table of what package to use when virtual packages are
specified (does it do that still?).
It supports use of local database for packages which do not
have build-dependency. It was written by Ronan Hodek,
and I think it was patched and fixed and extended by
several people. It is part of wanna-build, and used extensively
in Debian buildd system. I think it was maintained
mostly by Ryan Murray.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Birth of pbuilder</title>
<para>
wanna-build (sbuild) was quite difficult to set up, and it was
never a Debian package. dbuild was something that predated
Build-Depends.
</para>
<para>
Building package from source using Build-Depends
information within a chroot sounded trivial; and
pbuilder was born. It was initially a shell script
with only a few lines, which called debootstrap
and chroot and dpkg-buildpackage in the same run,
but soon, it was decided that's too slow.
</para>
<para>
Yes, and it took almost an year to get things somewhat
right, and in the middle of the process, Debian 3.0
was released. Yay.
Debian 3.0 wasn't completely buildable with pbuilder,
but the amount of packages which are not buildable
are steadily decreasing. (I hope)
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>And the second year of its life</title>
<para>
And someone wanted pbuilder to run as not root,
and User-mode-linux has become more useful as time passed,
I've started experimenting with pbuilder-uml.
pbuilder-uml has not been able to run as often as it should,
and bootstrapping user-mode-linux environment has been
pretty hard.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
</book>
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