How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE users?

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algarues

How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE users?

Post by algarues »

Dear Admins / Users

From time to time I am recompiling packages (64 bit) for LMDE that are available for Ubuntu only (from PPAs and which would not normally install on LMDE).

I can see that on my computer they work pretty well
For instance Grub-customizer (a Grub GUI) or Icecat or a fixed Gnome shell, with fully functional gnome settings and gnome online accounts.

How can I submit them for other users to try?

In a way I am finding that with a couple of commands, the gap in terms of amount of software available between Mint-Ubuntu and Mint-Debian becomes very narrow

In fact, it is very easy to download the sources of ubuntu packages with "atp-get source packagename"

and then recompile it with "dpkg-buildpackage"

In some cases (e.g. gnome-shell) a partially functional package becomes fully functional after recompilation when the sources are downloaded from LMDE repositories

showing that sometimes glitches depend on either configuration at compile time or because the package was compiled against libraries that are not the same on the final system (for instance)

Since these packages are rebuilt with dpkg-buildpackage, if installed with, for instance, Gdebi, they will call automatically their dependencies.

Would it be a good idea to create a section in LMDE website for packages contributed by users or should we all collectively start to think about LMDE PPAs?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
killer de bug

Re: How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE user

Post by killer de bug »

My opinion is that I would not be interested by these packages. Security would no more be here and it would be too dangerous to authorize everyone to give pseudo official packages.

But I can be wrong of course.
algarues

Re: How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE user

Post by algarues »

killer de bug wrote:My opinion is that I would not be interested by these packages. Security would no more be here and it would be too dangerous to authorize everyone to give pseudo official packages.

But I can be wrong of course.
Are you saying that

A: all the software in the Ubuntu PPAs is insecure?

B: all of the software they contain, which the official distro does not provide, is useless?

What an interesting vision you got...
mank_in

Re: How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE user

Post by mank_in »

Community.linuxmint.com have software portal, installation process with apt-url . But for the truth , i never try it and and i don't know if LMDE can installing package with that method .
: http://community.linuxmint.com/software
zerozero

Re: How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE user

Post by zerozero »

my opinion on this
algarues wrote:A: all the software in the Ubuntu PPAs is insecure?
most of it.
for several reasons:
1- trust
a) the majority of the ppa's are from unknown source: who is the maintainer? what have s/he done before?
b) how long can someone
2- quality
most of them are backports from newer releases trying to make some app work in older ones (some times at the expenses of bad hacks)
3- support
ubuntu doesn't give official support (in bug reports for example) to software installed through ppa's;
algarues wrote:B: all of the software they contain, which the official distro does not provide, is useless?
as you see above yes most (imo) and the scenario is even worst if we think that it's basically ubuntu's fault: they have the tools to make ppa's almost deprecated and don't use them.

going back to the main question: security/trust
who are you and what have you done so far?
killer de bug

Re: How to Distribute recompiled packages to other LMDE user

Post by killer de bug »

Thanks ZeroZero for the answer. That's exactly my opinion. I would just add that if the ppa is coming from a trusted source like Mozilla or Mint (for Cinnamon), you can probably use it... at your own risk.
If something is not in the official repo, then the security or the stability is no more guaranteed.

I would definitely compile a missing software over using your .deb algarues. Because I don't know you and by the way can't trust you. :wink:
(But I would use one provided by ZeroZero -with care of course- :lol: )
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