Modify install documentation / process to make building a deb more straightforward and not dependent on git

[tomaslaenen]

Hello,

when I try to install the python dependencies I get the following errors. What can I do to fix this?

fatal: No names found, cannot describe anything.
sed 's/Version: ./Version: /' debian/DEBIAN/control_template > debian/DEBIAN/control
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
build-essential is already the newest version.
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
python-support
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
cp -R debian/DEBIAN/ /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL
mkdir -p /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/bin
mkdir -p /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/share/doc/email2pdf
cp email2pdf /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/bin
cp README /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/share/doc/email2pdf
cp LICENSE* /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/share/doc/email2pdf
cp getmailrc.sample /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/share/doc/email2pdf
fakeroot chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL
fakeroot chmod -R u+x /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/usr/bin
fakeroot dpkg-deb --build /tmp/tmp.jUo8tL .
dpkg-deb: error: parsing file '/tmp/tmp.jUo8tL/DEBIAN/control' near line 2 package 'email2pdf':
error in 'Version' field string '': version string is empty
make: *** [builddeb_real] Error 2

[andrewferrier]

Hi - what command did you actually execute? Which version of Debian/Ubuntu are you using?

[tomaslaenen]

I am running Ubuntu 14.04 trusty.
The command I executed was sudo make builddeb.

[andrewferrier]

OK, thanks - do you have git installed? If you look in the Makefile, in the determineversion target, that currently relies on git to get the description information for the version field. I could change that to make it fail more softly. Also, you don't need the "sudo".

[tomaslaenen]

Andrew,

the latest version of git is installed, can I change the Makefile to pass the version hardcoded instead of using git for this installation?

something like:
determineversion: 1.0.0

[tomaslaenen]

It's working now. I think I just started out wrong.
I deleted the folder and started with "git clone https://github.com/andrewferrier/email2pdf"
Then I ran the "make builddeb" command and it worked.

Thanks!

[andrewferrier]

@tomaslaenen OK thanks. I'm going to re-open this to improve the documentation/clarity in this area and make it fail softer. But I'm glad you fixed your problem right now. Thanks for your interest and hope you find email2pdf useful.

[tomaslaenen]

Thanks Andrew,
I'm still learning the functionalities, but it is a very useful application.