Removing sam2p from Debian
Classified in : Homepage, Debian, Command line, To remember
Issues with sam2p and removal
I have been maintaining the Debian package of sam2p for some time. Unfortunately, the upstream development of that program is no longer active, and it is using an old custom build chain that no longer works with recent version of GCC.
This package is currently failing to build from source, and while I have been able to patch some issues in the past, and it may still be possible to fix it again, this is not really sustainable.
I am therefore considering to remove sam2p from Debian, unless someone has a very good reason to keep it and is able and willing to maintain it.
Wrapper to use su as sudo (or sudo as su)
Classified in : Homepage, Debian, Command line
The problem
Some programs require root privileges for part of their work: most notably Debian building tools such as dpkg-buildpackage or pdebuild. So, several command can be used to obtain real or fake root privileges: su, sudo, fakeroot, etc. Among them, su is quite distinct, because it only takes a quoted command to pass it to a shell. That is why its interface is completely incompatible with the others':
$ su -c "pbuilder --build package.dsc" $ sudo pbuild --build package.dsc
This is annoying when real root privileges are needed, for instance by pbuilder, a tool to build Debian packages inside a minimal chroot. Indeed, in such a case I only know one command to obtain the root privileges, sudo, and some people (read: me) prefer using su.