If you want to test the latest bleeding-edge source code for aptitude, you can download unreleased aptitude source code using Mercurial. Install Mercurial (available from http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/) and execute the command hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/aptitude/head aptitude to retrieve the most recent source code.
![]() | Warning |
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The aptitude Mercurial repository is an active development tree; it will change as bugs are fixed and features are added, and there is absolutely no guarantee that it will even compile, let alone run properly! Bug reports are welcome, but be aware that you use development code entirely at your own risk![1] |
The primary mailing list for aptitude development is
<aptitude-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
.
Archives of the list are located at http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/aptitude-devel/.
To subscribe, visit the Web page http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/aptitude-devel.
Ideally, patches should be submitted to the aptitude
mailing list,
<aptitude-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
.
But if you prefer sending them by private email, you may
email them to <aptitude@packages.debian.org>
or <dburrows@debian.org>
. A brief
description of the motivation behind your patch, and an
explanation of how it works, are greatly appreciated.
The aptitude source tree is regularly updated with new features, bugfixes, and new bugs. Once the source code is available on your computer (see the previous section), you can cd into it and type hg pull && hg update to update it with any changes made to the main repository.
To automatically receive notifications when changes are made to the aptitude codebase, subscribe to the RSS feed available at http://hg.debian.org/hg/aptitude/head?cl=tip;style=rss.
To build aptitude from the Mercurial repository, you must
have the programs autoconf
and
automake
installed. Type
sh ./autogen.sh to generate the files
needed to compile aptitude, then execute
make and make
install.
[1] Of course, all free software is used at your own risk, but the risk involved in using an active development tree is much higher.