[aur-general] The Arch Way

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Fri, 2010-09-10 at 10:16 -0500, Thomas Dziedzic wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Christoph <chrdr at gmx.at> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have just adopted the package xmind
> > (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22394) because the former maintainer
> > disowned it, and I am not shure which is the best way to build the package.
> >
> > There are three possibilities:
> >
> > 1) Building from source
> > 2) Building from the "Portable" zip-file (see http://www.xmind.net/downloads/)
> > 3) Building from the deb-files provided for Debian/Ubuntu (see
> > http://www.xmind.net/downloads/)
> >
> > ad 1)
> > This is what you would usually do, but according to
> > http://groups.google.com/group/xmind-dev/browse_thread/thread/d68d0c8f30b4b42c
> > the eclipse ide would be a prerequisite, so that would need a very large
> > download if you do not already have installed eclipse (nearly 170 MB for
> > eclipse plus 10 MB for the xmind source code!)
> >
> > ad 2)
> > This was the way the former maintainer went. Download size: 75 MB
> > The portable zip-file contains both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions, so the
> > PKGBUILD just had to copy the right files.
> >
> > ad 3)
> > When I proposed (a year ago) to use the deb-files instead in order to have
> > smaller downloads (each of them, 32-bit and the 64-bit has appr. 36 MB), the
> > maintainer told me that this would be ugly and "not the Arch way", that he
> > would not do such a thing. When I told him that I did not get the point of it,
> > since the zip file equally just installed ready-built binaries, he did not
> > respond to it.
> >
> > I still think that using the deb-files would - in this special case - be the
> > best option. But of course I would never dare to deviate from "the Arch way"
> > (since it is the way to world domination, as we all know ;-)).
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Christoph
> >
> 
> I always prefer a package build from source, but if it's provided in a
> portable zip, that is a valid option in this instance. I would say go
> with option 2.
> 
> Cheers!

It looks like in this case the content of the portable zip is identicaly
(just about) to the content of the deb, just that the debs are
arch-specific. I'd think its simpler to just go with option 3. Its
surprising that any project REQUIRES eclipse to build though, eclipse
can generate makefiles which can be shipped with source....