Information about Debian/Ubuntu patches add to packages

[Robie Basak]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 11:32:05AM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> I don't care much about this package, but wish to know, if there is
> a file or webpage that mentions all Debian/Ubuntu patches included to a
> package, with a short explanation what those patches are for,
> including hints to perhaps disabled config options. A file that is part
> of each installed package or a website for the packages.

The current best practice Debian packaging format for upstream projects
is "3.0 (quilt)". You can check debian/source/format in the packaging
source (as pulled by apt-get source).

If this is being used, then you'll find all upstream patching shipped by
the package in debian/patches/ (applied according to
debian/patches/series). Best practice is to document what those patches
are for using dep3 (http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep3/) - self-explanatory
metadata at the top of each patch file in debian/patches/

It looks like the current libfm has two very minor patches that you can
find in the debian/patches/ directory in this way. If you're getting
significantly different behaviour, it might be the build time
configuration or something completely different.

If you're interested in how the packages are built (eg. configure
options) then look in debian/rules.

> I want to be informed about other packages, e.g. jackd2, qtractor,
> openbox and many more, but indeed, now I also want information about
> the libfm packages.

All the information you need is in the packaging source. I suggest you
learn a little about Debian source packages to better understand how to
make sense of it.

HTH,

Robie