Comment 84 for bug 202174

Mantas Kriaučiūnas wrote:
> I've noticed some bugs in latest abiword packages (2.6.3-0ubuntu1+ppa1)
> from https://launchpad.net/~abiword-stable/+archive/
>
> 1. abiword should register Mimetypes, provided in /usr/share/applications/abiword.desktop files in package postinst script - these lines should be in abiword postinst script:
> if [ "$1" = "configure" ] && which update-desktop-database >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
> update-desktop-database -q
> This can be done automatically, adding "include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/gnome.mk" (if you use cdbs) or "dh_desktop" (if you use only debhelper) to debian/rules, look for example at eog package's debian/rules
>
Ah, I was not aware it wasn't registering mimetypes - I thought with the
sheer number of places I had to update the list of mimetypes we
supported in the package that I had gotten that taken care of.
> 2. I don't understand why preinst script is needed for abiword - AFAIK
> current abiword uses fontconfig since 2.4, so, no need to call defoma-
> app purge in abiword 2.6.
>
Can I just remove it then? (We've used fontconfig for longer than that,
I believe) My basic principle was "don't rock the boat too much" for
Hardy - for Intrepid I have a lot of changes to make.
> 3. For easy upgrading from abiword-gnome package abiword should have
> abiword-gnome (<< 2.6.0) in Conflicts section and, also, provide virtual
> abiword-gnome package (just add line "Provides: abiword-gnome" in
> debian/control file)
>
OK - upgrading is obviously important.
> 4. Why dictionary files, like /usr/share/abiword-2.6/dictionary/ca-ES-
> barbarism.xml are distributed in main abiword package ? AFAIK less than
> 2 percents of AbiWord users will need Catalonian barbarism :)
>
Those aren't dictionaries, but extra data needed by AbiWord. We use
Enchant for the actual dictionaries, and with the size and such of those
files in comparison with the headaches that would come out of splitting
them, I'll leave them in.
> 5. abiword package contains too many plugins, some plugins should be moved to abiword-plugins package, at least rarely used plugins, which depends on several external libraries, like aiksaurus (depends on libaiksaurus-1.2-0c2a and libaiksaurusgtk-1.2-0c2a). I would also move AbiCollab plugin from abiword to plugins package, it depends on additional libraries, like libloudmouth1-0.
> abiword-plugins package is recommended by abiword package, so, it will be automatically installed for most people, who install abiword - see Debian packaging policy, http://debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-binarydeps :
>
> "Recommends declares a *strong*, but not absolute, dependency.
> The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations."
>
Plugins should not be thought about by the end user. They are plugins
(not in the core) sheerly for developer convenience, and except when
there is a compelling reason not to, should always be included with the
main package. As such, I am leaving all those plugins in there.
> 6. Also I'm suggesting to move architecture-independent data (all files from /usr/share/abiword-2.6/ - strings, templates, glade, clipart, etc - about 7MB) from abiword package to abiword-data or abiword-common package, this will save disk space on Debian/Ubuntu mirrors, also will take other benefits, see http://debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html#s-bpp-archindepdata :
> [..]if the size of the data is considerable, consider splitting it out into a separate, architecture-independent package ("_all.deb"). By doing this, you avoid needless duplication of the same data into eleven or more .debs, one per each architecture.[..]
>
There used to be an abiword-common package (which it doesn't seem to
replace, right now, if you upgrade it manually using synaptic) that I
was under the impression was just to save space between the GTK and
GNOME versions. If there is a reasonable reason (and it looks like
there might be) to bring it back even with only one front end version
(save space between arches), I can bring this back.

Just as an item to mention here, for Intrepid I'd like to get rid of all
plugin packages, since it does not help the end user to have them split
and that is the trend with other distributions packaging AbiWord.
However, right now I'm focusing on taking care of issues with the Hardy
package and backporting it to the PPA-supported distributions.

--
Ryan Pavlik
www.cleardefinition.com

#282 + (442) - [X]
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As he lay there in bed
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