Arch Linux (AUR) package(s) for freecalypso

[Vadim Yanitskiy]

Hi Mychaela,

On 02.09.2023 03:22, Mychaela Falconia wrote:
> I see that your packaging script patches the source to include <gsm/gsm.h>
> instead of plain <gsm.h> - fair enough, you are doing exactly what I
> expect local builders to do on systems with different paths.  But what
> about subsequent installation of gsm_fr_preproc.h and gsm_efr.h headers?
> My thinking is that they should be installed in the same directory
> where basic gsm.h resides, so that application programs will do:

ah, now I see the problem too.  There is indeed an inconsistency in the 
header paths between the existing 'gsm' package and our new 
'gsm-codec-lib' package.

> depending on the system style.  Basically libgsmfrp and libgsmefr are
> explicitly intended to be members of the same family as classic libgsm,
> and should be installed in a consistent style.

Ack. I agree that the 'gsm-codec-lib' should be consistent with the 
existing 'gsm' package in this regard.  I can patch the PKGBUILD to 
install the header files to the '/usr/include/gsm/' directory.

> Would it be possible to reach out to whoever maintains the classic
> libgsm package for Arch and get the same person/team to add/maintain
> libgsmfrp and libgsmefr packages (or a combined themwi-gsm-codec-lib
> package if that's what Arch prefers) likewise?

I think I need to clarify some things first.  Arch Linux has the 
official repository with binary packages [1], just like Debian and other 
distributions.  The 'gsm' package [2] is part of this repository, so it 
can be installed just by running: pacman -S gsm.

In addition to the official repository, there exists the Arch User 
Repository [3][4], which does not contain ready-to-use binary packages 
for pacman, but only the build scripts (PKGBUILD files).

All freecalypso packages I created and submitted so far are part of the 
Arch User Repository, so the end user needs to build them before they 
can be installed (similar to the BSD ports).  There exist pacman 
wrappers for that ('yay' for instance).

[1] https://archlinux.org/packages/
[2] https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gsm/
[3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repositorywith
[4] https://aur.archlinux.org/

I don't think reaching out to the 'gsm' package maintainer 
(@felixonmars) makes any sense at the moment, because "our princess is 
in another castle" (quote from Super Mario Bros).  We cannot ask people 
to include something to their packages just because we want that and we 
find this useful.

It's possible for AUR packages to become the citizens of the official 
repository.  Here is a quote from [3]: "The AUR community has the 
ability to vote for packages in the AUR.  If a package becomes popular 
enough — provided it has a compatible license and good packaging 
technique — it may be entered into the extra repository (directly 
accessible by pacman or abs)".

If the 'gsm-codec-lib' gets enough votes, we can of course propose a 
request to merge the libgsmfrp and libgsmefr libs into the [2].  Right 
now we have no votes at all ;)

>> I also created a release package for the fc-host-tools:
>>
>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/freecalypso-tools
>>
>> which is based on the release tarball (r19) and does include the target
>> binaries installed under '/opt/freecalypso/target-bin'.
> Looks good, thanks!  I will also be putting out r20 shortly, as
> previously promised.

The PKGBUILD has been updated to pull the new release:

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/commit/?h=freecalypso-tools&id=fdac75b24ebbd0e069170091f6b12c86b8fbf236

If you have no objections, I will modify the 'gsm-codec-lib' package to 
install the header files to '/usr/include/gsm' next week.

-- 
Best regards,
Vadim.