[buildd-tools-devel] Bug#693222: sbuild: set --build-dep-resolver (possibly other options) per chroot or distribution

[Simon McVittie]

Package: sbuild
Version: 0.63.2-1
Severity: wishlist

When using sbuild with a newer-than-default, "NotAutomatic: yes" distribution
like experimental or backports, it is necessary to use the aptitude resolver
instead of the default, so that experimental packages' versioned dependencies
can be satisfied from experimental if necessary.

Official buildds handle this by having separate unstable, experimental and
backports buildds with their own configuration, and setting
$build_dep_resolver = 'aptitude' on the experimental and backports buildds.

When using a personal sbuild to ensure that the uploaded/tested binaries
match what would have been produced by a buildd (which is how I do all of
my uploads), it would be useful to be able to switch between modes a
little more gracefully than setting --build-dep-resolver for every
experimental or backports build.

Perhaps something like this? (this is how I anticipate the default would look)

    $build_dep_resolver = 'apt';
    $distribution_build_dep_resolvers = {
        experimental => 'aptitude',
	'squeeze-backports' => 'aptitude',
	'wheezy-backports' => 'aptitude',
	'jessie-backports' => 'aptitude',
    };

Then an experimental build would be as easy as
"sbuild -d experimental foo.dsc", whereas it's currently necessary to do
"sbuild --build-dep-resolver=aptitude -d experimental foo.dsc".

What I currently use is this wrapper:

    #!/bin/sh
    # ~/bin/expbuild: 
    exec sbuild --build-dep-resolver=aptitude -d experimental "$@"

but ideally it wouldn't be necessary for DDs to copy around little scripts
like this.

Thanks,
    S

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing-proposed-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'testing-proposed-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages sbuild depends on:
ii  adduser         3.113+nmu3
ii  apt-utils       0.9.7.6
ii  libsbuild-perl  0.63.2-1
ii  perl            5.14.2-15
ii  perl-modules    5.14.2-15

Versions of packages sbuild recommends:
ii  debootstrap  1.0.43
ii  fakeroot     1.18.4-2

Versions of packages sbuild suggests:
pn  deborphan  <none>
ii  wget       1.14-1

-- no debconf information