.Dd Jul 18, 2007
.Os Ubuntu
.ds volume-operating-system Ubuntu
.Dt GERMINATE\-UPDATE\-METAPACKAGE 1
.Sh NAME
.Nm germinate\-update\-metapackage
.Nd update a set of metapackages generated from seeds
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl Fl vcs
.Op Fl Fl output-directory Ar dir
.Op Ar dist
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
assists with the construction and update of
.Dq metapackages
(packages consisting solely of a list of dependencies) from a list of seed
packages.
It updates binary package stanzas in
.Pa debian/control
to reflect the current contents of the seeds, and updates
.Pa debian/changelog
with a description of the changes it made.
.Pp
.Nm
requires a configuration file, called
.Pa update.cfg ,
in the current directory.
The format is described below.
.Pp
If a non-option argument is given, it specifies the distribution for which
metapackages should be generated (e.g.\&
.Dq unstable ) .
.Sh OPTIONS
.Bl -tag -width 4n
.It Fl Fl nodch
Don't modify
.Pa debian/changelog .
.It Fl Fl vcs
Check out seeds from a version control system rather than fetching them
directly from a URL.
Requires
.Ic bzr
or
.Ic git ,
as appropriate, to be installed.
The version control system to use is guessed from the
.Li seed_base
URL defined in the configuration file, trying
.Ic git
then
.Ic bzr
if the URL is ambiguous.
For
.Ic git ,
the part after the rightmost
.Sq \&.
character of
.Li seed_dist ,
if any, is treated as the branch name to check out; this rather strange
style is for backward compatibility.
.It Fl Fl bzr
Check out seeds from the
.Ic bzr
branch defined in the configuration file rather than fetching them directly
from the URL defined there.
Requires
.Ic bzr
to be installed.
This option is deprecated and is retained for backward compatibility; use
.Fl Fl vcs
instead.
.It Xo Fl o ,
.Fl Fl output-directory Ar dir
.Xc
Output the package lists in the specified directory.
.El
.Sh CONFIGURATION FILE
.Pa update.cfg
uses Python's ConfigParser configuration file syntax, supporting
interpolation as defined by SafeConfigParser.
It should have a
.Li DEFAULT
section with a
.Li dist
key indicating the default distribution, and a
.Ar dist
section (corresponding to that distribution).
It may also have a
.Ar dist Ns Li /vcs
or
.Ar dist Ns Li /bzr
section which can override the
.Li seed_base
and
.Li seed_dist
values from the
.Ar dist
section if the
.Fl Fl vcs
or
.Fl Fl bzr
option respectively is given.
For backward compatibility, if
.Fl Fl vcs
is given, then
.Ar dist Ns Li /bzr
will also be consulted.
.Pp
The following keys are recognised in distribution sections:
.Bl -tag -width 4n
.It Li seeds No (mandatory)
Pass these seeds to the germinator for processing.
.It Li output_seeds No (optional, deprecated)
Generate metapackages for these seeds.
If not specified, the value of
.Li seeds
is used.
This option is usually no longer necessary now that the value of
.Li seeds
is automatically expanded for seed inheritance.
.It Li architectures No (mandatory)
Generate metapackages for these architectures.
.It Li archive_base/default No (optional)
Use this URL as the default base for fetching package indices from the
archive; for examples of valid URLs, see
.Li deb
lines in
.Pa /etc/apt/sources.list ,
or the
.Ar MIRROR
argument to
.Xr debootstrap 8 .
.It Li archive_base/ Ns Ar arch No (optional)
Use this URL as the base for fetching package indices from the archive for
the specified architecture.
For each architecture being processed, at least one of
.Li archive_base/default
and
.Li archive_base/ Ns Ar arch
must be present.
To try multiple URLs, separate them with commas or spaces;
the newest version of each package across all archives will win.
Note that
.Xr debootstrap 8
will only use the first archive.
.It Li seed_base No (mandatory)
The base URL for fetching seeds.
To try multiple URLs (for example if a seed branch includes another branch
stored at a different location), separate them with commas or spaces.
.It Li seed_dist No (optional)
The tail of the URL for fetching seeds.
This will be appended to
.Li seed_base .
You will often want to interpolate the value of
.Li dist
into this value using ConfigParser's
.Li %(dist)s
syntax.
If not specified, the value of
.Li dist
is used.
.It Li dists No (optional)
The distributions from which to fetch package indices.
Listing multiple distributions may be useful, for example, when examining
both a released distribution and its security updates.
If not specified, the value of
.Li dist
is used.
.It Li components No (mandatory)
The archive components from which to fetch package indices.
.It Li seed_map/ Ns Ar seed No (optional, deprecated)
The seeds to be used as input for the metapackage corresponding to
.Ar seed .
If specified, this will typically be the list of seeds from which
.Ar seed
inherits, plus
.Ar seed
itself.
This option is usually no longer necessary; use a
.Li Task\-Seeds
header in the seed file instead.
.It Li metapackage_map/ Ns Ar seed No (optional, deprecated)
The metapackage name to output for
.Ar seed .
If not specified,
.Nm
will look for the name of the source package in which it is being run,
remove "meta" from the end, and append the seed name.
This option is usually no longer necessary; use a
.Li Task\-Metapackage
header in the seed file instead.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLE
At the time of writing, the following configuration file is used to generate
the
.Li kubuntu-meta
source package in the Ubuntu archive:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
[DEFAULT]
dist: zesty

[zesty]
seeds: desktop full active
architectures: i386 amd64 powerpc armhf arm64 ppc64el
seed_base: http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/seeds/
seed_dist: kubuntu.%(dist)s
archive_base/default: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
archive_base/ports: http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/
archive_base/powerpc: %(archive_base/ports)s
archive_base/armhf: %(archive_base/ports)s
archive_base/arm64: %(archive_base/ports)s
archive_base/ppc64el: %(archive_base/ports)s
components: main restricted universe

[zesty/bzr]
seed_base: bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-dev/ubuntu-seeds/ bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-seeds/
seed_dist: kubuntu.%(dist)s
.Ed
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Gustavo Franco Aq stratus@debian.org
.An Colin Watson Aq cjwatson@canonical.com
.Pp
.An -nosplit
.Nm
is copyright \(co 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
.An Canonical Ltd.
and
copyright \(co 2006
.An Gustavo Franco .
See the GNU General Public License version 2 or later for copying
conditions.
A copy of the GNU General Public License is available in
.Pa /usr/share/common\-licenses/GPL .