MOTU: Questions and more questions
April 3rd, 2007I know that my previous MOTU post said that I’d be sort of doing a survey of available documentation about packaging and MOTU. But I thought that asking some questions would be a better way to start. I would at least have some sort of tentative checklist on things I should be on the look out for.
Some of these questions might be similar to what other MOTU Hopefuls would be asking, so I hope that some of the answers will be helpful to others as well (might even end up in the MOTU FAQ at some point). These questions are pretty basic (a.k.a. newbie-ish) so I was able to find tentative answers for some of them. But as I go along, I might find more definitive answers and update the list.
- How do a I make a package?
- See the Ubuntu Packaging Guide
- What should I know to be able to start learning how to make packages?
- “You should know what Linux is.” Kidding aside, knowing how to compile from source code will definitely be a big advantage. Anyway, if there’s something you don’t know yet, you can learn it along the way. Oh, and you must at least know how to use the man pages. (the man:/ KDE kioslave is such a nice feature!)
- Where to ask for help?
- MOTU Contact. Just a note, as one developer mentioned, you should be willing to look for information and trying things yourself first, and not expect a lot of spoonfeeding and hand-holding. Search first, try it out, and then ask.
- How do I set up my system for Ubuntu development/packaging?
- See the Ubuntu Packaging Guide. You will basically be needing some of the tools listed in that guide.
- What are the tools needed/used for packaging?
- See the Ubuntu Packaging Guide. build-essential and pbuilder seem to be the most notable.
- How do you get changes uploaded/accepted?
- See the MOTU Sponsorship process
- When would be a good time to make packages/changes?
- See the MOTU Processes
- How do I become a MOTU?
- After working with MOTU’s, see the MOTU Recruitment process.
There, some nice, very basic, beginner-level questions. I know that I might have missed some, as these were mostly my own questions. I also have some other questions reserved for the future, but maybe for another day/post. If I recall any other newbie-type questions, I’ll update this list as well.
Now on to taking an initial survey of the available guides and documentation for MOTU Hopefuls. And, from what I’ve seen while looking for the answers above, there are a lot of them. Well, better get started then. 
Just some small updates, while I'm trying to get off my ass and migrate the site completely to Textpattern.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:14 am
This is great! Thanks so much for sharing this. I haven’t had a chance to look everything over yet, but this looks like a great basic introduction to packaging.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Yeah, really does contain everything you’d ever want to know about packaging. Looks like quite a complicated process still.
There’s two packages in particular I’d like to see, scribes and bluej. Perhaps I will get around doing that one day.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:43 am
You should also make it a point to learn many things about the particular software you would like to package. The actual packaging process won’t be much useful if you have no idea how the application works. It’s one of the hard lessons I’ve learned before.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:57 am
One thing that guides often miss is the very simple question “What is a package?” It seems a bit silly but I remember when I was learning packaging, it took some time to understand what exactly a package was and the difference between a source package and a binary package and how they’re related. Once you learn this kind of fundamental detail, everything else just falls into place.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Thanks for comments and tips!
@Jim Campbell: I hope you like the rest of the “series” that I’m planning. It won’t be meant to replace the Packaging Guide. It will be more of a “tour” of the MOTU landscape.
@LT: Scratching an itch is how I got started in most of the “techy” things I’ve done. Like submitting a debdiff for an update Umbrello, because I hated that Umbrello kept on crashing for me.
@Jerome: I agree. Working on something you’re interested in or familiar with not only makes things a bit easier, but also provides motivation. You wouldn’t want to work on something you don’t like, would you?
@Andy Price: Come to think of it, what is a package and what’s the difference between a source package and a binary package? I’d really appreciate it if you could share what you learned.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Jucato, the answers to that question lie in the Debian FAQ: http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html
Have fun
April 19th, 2007 at 1:15 am
[...] Still on MOTU, I was very satisfied with the initial comments on my first MOTU post. Special thanks to Jerome, Andy, and Zak who all gave me great ideas and stuff to talk about. I [...]