[Gnewsense-dev] Re: No xv?

[Yavor Doganov]

>     To which part?
> 
> To changing the package control file without rebuilding it.

This is not feasible on the long run, as Karl has explained.

> We need to alter the binary package, I guess.

No, the reliable way to do it is to modify xorg's debian/control file,
but IIUC Karl thinks this is not a modification worth doing.

FWIW, these extra Conflicts: are obsolete for Debian too AFAICT, so it
wouldn't hurt filing a wishlist bug with a request to remove them.

> Can't that be done by patching it with a script rather than
> rebuilding it?

No, that's (practically) possible in certain situations, but that way
leads to madness and all kinds of problems that are hard to
debug/analyze/fix.  The way to tweak package relationships is to edit
debian/control and rebuild the source package (there are variable
substitutions performed at build time, so any (semi-)automatic
"patching" is likely to fail, sometimes in mysterious ways).