[mythtv-users] Packaging MythTV (was Best distribution for MythTV)

[Paul Gardiner]

On 01/09/2020 12:43, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> On 01/09/2020 12:34, beppo wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> you don't need to change your distro, I build my own rpms for OpenSUSE 
>> for
>> years now.
>> I use the spec files from the Packman repo and modify it for mythtv-v31.
>>
>> If you are interested, I can share you spec file.
> 
> This is excellent. I have a very clear way forward now, and two possible 
> sources for spec files.
> 
> Thank you so much to all the helpful people that have made comments.

And thank you again everyone who replied. Taking on bits of advice from 
the various replies, I am now on v31 without changing distro and without 
losing my use of kiwi to create front-end images.

I decided to go for the start-my-own-packaging-from-scratch option, 
thinking that I may end up with a simpler spec file than the one that 
packman uses, although I have to admit - as I work on it - I'm finding 
many of the complications are necessary, and possibly almost all will 
return if I wish my spec file to be of general use to others. There's 
still the advantage that I can check into git the various stages so that 
I have a record of what the various bits are for.

I didn't see a way to use the ansible playbook directly, but I cribbed 
almost all my BuildRequires lines from perusal of the playbook source. I 
seemed to need a few more for the jump from 29.1 to 31, but those I 
found in some info that Beppo kindly sent to me.

I have a working system, but there are still some issues I'll need to 
sort out long term:

1. I haven't added many Requires lines. Library dependencies seem to be 
generated mostly automatically, but I guess I'll find others I need when 
I try installing on a fresh system that hasn't previously run MythTV.

2. I currently generate a single package. At some state, I'll want to 
break it up into smaller ones. (my frontend disc image is 200MB bigger 
because of not having done so). The problem here is working out what 
uses what. I don't want to just copy from another spec file, and I don't 
want to spend hours looking for error messages of one component 
reporting another missing. I'm wondering what other options there might 
be to discover the dependency graph.

3. I'm not currently building the plugins. The build for these seems to 
be a nightmare for packagers (if I'm understanding correctly). The 
plugins build requires the core of mythtv to be both built and 
installed. The packman spec file uses a work around I really rather not 
copy. I'm considering using two package generation stages with two spec 
files, the second using the source package from the first, but this may 
not work and is inefficient as it involves building the core twice. I'm 
wondering what other options there are... maybe changing the mythtv 
source would be best.

Richard Show, I guess you must have run into all these issues. I'm 
particularly interested to know if you have any incites.