#1087427 devscripts: debbisect could check for mmdebstrap before starting the bisect and provide a warning if it's not present

Package:
devscripts
Source:
devscripts
Description:
scripts to make the life of a Debian Package maintainer easier
Submitter:
Santiago Vila
Date:
2024-11-13 12:27:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1087427#5
Date:
2024-11-13 12:24:23 UTC
From:
To:
Hello. Decided to actually try debbisect today:

$ ./myscript
good timestamp was actually bad -- see debbisect.log.bad for details
$ cat debbisect.log.bad
/usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples/debbisect_buildsrc.sh: 11: mmdebstrap: not found


I think it's ok that mmdebstrap is not in Depends (devscripts has a lot of stuff,
and it's even theoretically possible to use debbisect without mmdebstrap).

I suspect modifying debbisect_buildsrc.sh will not help here, because
debbisect will probably silence its output no matter what.

However, checking when a given package started (or stopped) to ftbfs is
one of the things debbisect was designed for, and I guess most people
will use debbisect in combination with mmdebstrap, so maybe debbisect
could be the one to give a warning to the user if mmdebstrap is not
present.

Thanks.