[arch-general] makepkg and its dependencies, how to create a good build chroot?

[Magnus Therning]

For a while now I've been using some scripts to handle the details for
creating build chroots, updating them, and triggering builds in them.
It's all part of my work with building Haskell packages for Arch.

To create a chroot I used this line:

    mkarchroot -f -C ${pacman_conf} \
        -M /usr/share/devtools/makepkg-${arch}.conf ${CHROOT_ROOTDIR} \
        util-linux-ng pacman sudo wget file grep base-devel ghc

Well, that is, I used that line up until yesterday, and it worked fine
until then.  Yesterday I ran into the problem that the command `find`,
which is used by `makepkg`, was missing in the chroot.  A little while
later I found the same to be true for `gzip`.  So, I added `findutils`
and `gzip` to the list of packages to be installed.

Now, `makepkg` comes in the `pacman` package, and it doesn't have any
dependencies on either of these packages, not even an optional
dependency.

This leaves me with three questions:

1. Why does `pacman` (the package) not depend on `findutils` and
   `gzip`, when `makepkg` clearly needs both those packages to
   function properly?

2. Are there any other packages I ought to install in a build chroot
   besides those I've listed above?

3. Dependencies of packages change over time, so is there a shortcut
   to making sure I always create a good build chroot (a group maybe)?

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                      OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 
email: magnus at therning.org   jabber: magnus at therning.org
twitter: magthe               http://therning.org/magnus

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have
C++ in mind.
     -- Alan Kay
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