How to backport recent Boost packages to older ubuntu distro's and build using personal PPA

boost-backporting-guide.md

Boost backporting

Goal here is to document the steps I took in May 2012 to get Boost 1.49 packages backported and working on Lucid, Maverick, Natty, Oneiric, and Precise.

TODO: look into using ubuntu-dev-tools and backportpackage -s [new_release] -d [old_release] -u [ppa] [package_name]

Install dev tools

sudo apt-get install debhelper devscripts dput git-core python pgpgpg

Avoid pitfalls

Lucid does not have at least devhelper 8, which is needed for a variety of steps below. In this case I installed it from another person's PPA:

sudo apt-get install --yes python-software-properties
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pitti/postgresql
sudo apt-get update
apt-cache policy debhelper # should be 8
sudo apt-get install debhelper

Then, also copy this devhelper package for lucid to any PPA you are going to be building packages in by grabbing it from: https://launchpad.net/~pitti/+archive/postgresql/+copy-packages

Grab existing source

First get the existing source for packages. You can do this on any platform using apt-get source <package>, but in our case we want to get the latest possible. So, we find that at the beta disto page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/quantal/boost1.49. At the bottom of the page are the links to the sources. Download them:

mkdir boost-backport
cd  boost-backport
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/b/boost1.49/boost1.49_1.49.0-2ubuntu1.debian.tar.gz
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/b/boost1.49/boost1.49_1.49.0-2ubuntu1.dsc
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/b/boost1.49/boost1.49_1.49.0.orig.tar.bz2

Repackage

Then, open up the source and go inside:

dpkg-source -x *dsc
cd */

Now we need to edit the changelog, adding entry for our backport:

export EDITOR=vim
# this triggers interactive editing of debian/changelog
dch -i
# add to changelog name/email, reason for upload

For the package name do something like: "boost1.49 (1.49.0-2ubuntu1~oneiric1) oneiric; urgency=medium". This would target the oneiric distribution. We'll add a new entry for each distro that is targeted.

Then leave the editor and make a few modifications to the package. To get boost 1.49 to compile on all distros I commented all references to quicklook. And to get the script to run without error on lucid and maverick I had to move the package back from using dh_python2 and dh_python3 to using the older py-support, which was done by applying https://gist.github.com/2777019.

Rebuild

Next, install a few build dependencies of this boost package:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libicu-dev bison flex docbook-to-man help2man xsltproc doxygen python-all-dev python3 python3-all-dev

Now we are ready to build the modified package:

debuild -S

That should drop a new set of files up one directory named after the top line in your changelog. Since, in this example case we named our package 1.49.0-2ubuntu1~oneiric1 there should be a new file named boost1.49_1.49.0-2ubuntu~oneiric1.changes.

Upload

If you have a ppa set up, now upload the file:

dput ppa:username/ppa-name ../*oneiric1*changes

Now you can repeat this process for each distro you want to start. For example you can now go back and start again at the dch -i and just edit the changelog to point to a different distro, then again run debuild and dput.

Extras

Boost benefits from a boost-defaults meta package, which allows users to simply request the most recent boost version available by doing, for example apt-get install libboost-thread-dev and for other package scripts to declare boost dependencies like: libboost-thread-dev (>= 1.49). This way, in our case packages will be built against our custom Boost 1.49 package unless more recent boost is available for a given distro.

So, to repackage boost-defaults I did:

# from http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/quantal/boost-defaults
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/b/boost-defaults/boost-defaults_1.49.0.1.dsc
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/b/boost-defaults/boost-defaults_1.49.0.1.tar.gz
dpkg-source -x *dsc
cd */
export EDITOR=vim
# add to changelog name/email, reason for upload
dch -i
echo '8' > debian/compat
vim debian/control # change debhelper to >= 8
debuild -S
cd ../
# test that it builds
dpkg-source -x boost-defaults_1.49.0.1ubuntu1~lucid1.dsc tmp-build
cd tmp-build
debuild -uc -us -b
cd ../
dpkg -i debhelper_9.20120419ubuntu3_all.deb
dput ppa:springmeyer/nightly-trunk *oneiric1_source*changes