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TDeb Specification
Chapter 7 - TDebs and LINGUAS

7.1 Avoiding changes to the source package

Many packages using autotools use the LINGUAS support of gettext but this requires changes within the source of the package - sometimes po/LINGUAS but more commonly configure.ac|in. Changing configure.ac and regenerating the autotools build system completely undermines the objective of TDebs being able to be used independently of maintainer uploads and NMUs. Existing TDeb support ignores the LINGUAS method, therefore:

If a $lang.po file exists in a recognisable po directory (${top_srcdir}/po/ or ${top_srcdir}/po-*/, TDeb handlers will process that .po file even if it is not listed in LINGUAS. If the PO file is valid, the generated .mo file will be included into the TDeb.

Packages will no longer be able to have unactivated or unused translations. (This is a debhelper / other packaging tool implementation problem, not a dpkg one)

As a result of this requirement, the debhelper tdeb tool (dh_gentdeb) handles finding the translations, preparing the binary translation files and moving the translations to suitable directories within the package build.

7.2 TDebs and binary packages

The filesystem contents of TDebs and their associated binary packages must be mutually exclusive, so that dpkg doesn't need any special replace handling. We will still need some Replaces for the transition, but that can be handled like any other Replaces.

7.3 Migrating packages to TDeb support

Maintainers will need to make a variety of changes to support TDebs:

• Replaces

• Add the recommended $src-tdeb package name with Replaces: $binaries (<< $srcversion) where $srcversion is a fixed string for the version prior to TDebs

       e.g. Replaces: apt (<< 0.7.19), apt-utils (<< 0.7.19)
  

• Remove translated content from all *.install files in debian/

• Remove any lines in debian/rules that handle translated content

• Ensure that dh_gentdeb is called in debian/rules (CDBS will be patched to implement this support automatically).

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TDeb Specification