[MERGE] Better warnings when pyrex is not available

[James Westby]

On (16/07/07 15:05), John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> Considering all of that, I think I'd rather just let the 'python setup.py
> build' fail, and let people sort it out.

That sounds good, with appropriate documentation of the dependencies.

> 
> This isn't part of the test suite, it is just a regular build dependency issue.
> 
> I suppose we could have a meta-package of 'bzr-dev' which would depend on all
> the things that you need to build bzr now.

Well, in terms of packaging for Debian and derivatives that is not
needed. Each source packages have Build-Depends which document the
packages that are required to be installed to build the package. bzr
will have the appropriate packages, and then calling

  apt-get build-dep bzr

will install all that is required. If people want to do it all
themselves then they can chase dependencies, which is reasonable.

There will be problems for people to transition, but an entry in the
release notes or in the release email should point them in the right
direction.

> 
> I know there was also discussion a while ago (I think by Robert) about
> splitting the bzr package into a 'bzrlib', since it is a bit more 'correct' for
> 3rd-party dependencies like Olive.

That seems reasonable. It probably isn't too much of an issue in
practice as bzr minus bzrlib isn't that big, and they are released as
one.

We can make this change transparently if we decide it is worthwhile.

> Sure, I wasn't recommending 'apt-cache' as a real option. And it would be very
> site-dependent. (is it python-all-dev or python-dev or python2.4-all-dev, or is
> it 'rpm -q' instead of 'dpkg -l', or fink or darwin ports, or ..).
> 
> If it was a python module we could inspect, then it might make sense to do it
> ourselves. I don't think we can reasonably handle the large permutations of
> possible packaging systems. Especially considering the package name can easily
> change over time even if the system itself is fixed.

I agree.


> As an aside, this is (as I understand) why the 'bzr' package Depends on
> python-paramiko, rather than Recommends.
> 
> People who install bzr expect to have ssh/sftp support. Even though we function
> all other ways without it (in fact, we should support bzr+ssh even without
> paramiko if you have openssh installed).
> 
> I think 'apt-get' defaults to only mentioning Recommends, is that correct?

I haven't used apt-get for a while, but when I did that was certainly
the case.

Thanks,

James

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