Debian GNOME Packaging

Using the SVN repository

The source for pkg-gnome’s packages is managed with the Subversion version control system.

If you need general help with Subversion, check out the online book Version control with Subversion.

The pkg-gnome repository

The pkg-gnome repository is accessible via:

Read-only:
    svn://anonscm.debian.org/pkg-gnome/
Read-Write: (You must be a member of the pkg-gnome team on alioth)
    svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-gnome/

The repository can be browsed with a web browser via WebSVN or ViewSVN (better for browsing the structure of the repository, but not as good for querying the history and retreiving complete changesets).

Structure of the repository

pkg-gnome
+-- desktop
    +-- unstable
        +-- gnome-foo
        +-- gnome-bar
    +-- experimental
        +-- gnome-foo
        +-- gnome-bar
+-- packages
    +-- unstable
        +-- gnome-baz
        +-- gnome-qux
    +-- experimental
        +-- gnome-baz
        +-- gnome-qux
+-- tags
    +-- gnome-foo
    +-- gnome-bar
    +-- gnome-baz
    +-- gnome-qux
+-- tools
    +-- ...
+-- www
    +-- ...

Officially-blessed modules (desktop, platform, bindings and the admin tools) live in /desktop. Packages that are not part of an official GNOME release live in /packages.

Checking out

Here we are using epiphany-browser as an example of a package that we want to make changes to.

First of all, create an area for you to do your work in:

mkdir -p ~/src/pkg-gnome cd ~/src/pkg-gnome

If you are not going to commit to the repository yourself, but instead send a patch to the pkg-gnome team:

svn checkout svn://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/epiphany-browser

If you have been granted commit access to the repostory:

svn checkout svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/epiphany-browser

You will now have an epiphany-browser directory that is empty except for a single debian directory. This is normal!

Next: Packaging >>