[mythtv-users] problems installing Mythtv 29 and 0.28 on Debian Buster

[richard at mail.sheugh.com]

Hi all,

I'm running Debian Buster and I'm having problems installing
Mythtv by following the instructions for ver 29 on the
mythtv.org website.

Here's the relevant part of the outcome - quote/

Current hash: af5d819671
#build the tarball
tar czf /home/richard1/build/packaging/deb/mythtv/../mythtv_29.1"+"fixes.20190109.af5d819671.orig.tar.gz --exclude-vcs --exclude .pc --exclude-tag-all mythtv.make *
rm -f debian/control
sed "s/#TYPE#/fixes/; s/#ABI#/29/" debian/control.in > debian/control
if [ "fixes" = "master" ]; then \
        sed -i debian/control -e 's/Recommends:\ mythtv-themes.*/Recommends:\ mythtv-themes, mythtv-dbg/' ;\
fi
Missing build dependencies for mythtv, will install them now:
[sudo] password for richard1:
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_prep
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_install
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
dh_compress
dh_fixperms
dh_installdeb
dh_gencontrol
dh_md5sums
dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: error: parsing file 'debian/mythtv-build-deps/DEBIAN/control' near line 2 package 'mythtv-build-deps':
 error in 'Version' field string '2:29.1+fixes.20190109.af5d819671-Version:': invalid character in revision number
dh_builddeb: dpkg-deb --build debian/mythtv-build-deps .. returned exit code 2
dh_builddeb: Aborting due to earlier error
make: *** [debian/rules:30: binary-indep] Error 2
Error in the build process: exit status 2
dpkg: error: cannot access archive 'mythtv-build-deps_29.1+fixes.20190109.af5d819671-Version:_amd64.deb': No such file or directory
mk-build-deps: dpkg --unpack failed
error installing dependencies

/unquote

There's a few problems already.

the current 'tar' ver 1.30 has different --exclude requirements
and error in 'Version' field string

I had a look on google, and it seems this problem is ongoing for at least
a month.

I tried reverting to mythtv ver 0.28 but found problems there too.

here's the correction for /mythtv.make for tar - also needed for ver 29 BTW
       tar czf --exclude-vcs --exclude .pc --exclude-tag-all mythtv.make $(CURDIR)/../$(TARFILE) *

the next problem encountered is that the most recent Debian version of
libfreetype6-dev -  libfreetype6-dev_2.9.1-3_amd64.deb
this doesn't have /usr/bin/freetype-config because that was dropped in
favour of pkg-config in nov 2018.

I've begun to patch mythtv/configure to work around the libfreetype6-dev problems
but if someone has been down this path before and has some working code,
I'd be happy to read it. 

richard