1 README file for Lintian
2 =======================
7 IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE USE OF LINTIAN:
9 1. Lintian is not finished yet and will probably never be. Please don't
10 use Lintian as a reference for Debian policy. Lintian might miss a lot
11 of policy violations while it might also report some violations by
12 mistake. If in doubt, please check out the policy manuals.
14 2. The Debian policy gives the maintainers a lot of freedom. In most
15 cases, the guidelines included in the manuals allow exceptions. Thus,
16 if Lintian reports a policy violation on a package and you think this
17 is such an exception (or if you think Lintian has a bug itself) please
18 contact the authors of Lintian about this. There is an `override'
19 file which tells Lintian about policy exceptions.
21 3. Please DO NOT use Lintian to file bug reports (neither single ones nor
22 mass bug reports). This is done by authors of Lintian already and
23 duplication of efforts and bug reports should be avoided! If you think
24 a certain bug is `critical', and should be reported/fixed immediately,
25 please contact the maintainer of the corresponding package and/or the
28 4. Any feedback about Lintian is welcomed! Please send your comments to
29 <lintian-maint@debian.org>.
32 Running Lintian for the first time
33 ----------------------------------
35 Here is what you have to do at minimum to get lintian up and running:
37 1. Install the `lintian' package
39 2. Run lintian over your packages:
41 $ lintian <something>.deb
42 $ lintian <something>.udeb
43 $ lintian <something>.dsc
44 $ lintian <something>.changes
46 (Yes, Lintian is really easy to use! ;-)
49 Command line options of the lintian command
50 -------------------------------------------
52 Syntax: lintian [action] [options] [--] [packages] ...
54 (Please refer to the manual page lintian(1) for details.)
57 -S, --setup-lab set up static lab
58 -R, --remove-lab remove static lab
59 -c, --check check packages (default action)
60 -C X, --check-part X check only certain aspects
61 -X X, --dont-check-part X don't check certain aspects
62 -u, --unpack only unpack packages in the lab
63 -r, --remove remove package from the lab
65 -h, --help display short help text
66 -v, --verbose verbose messages
67 -V, --version display Lintian version and exit
68 -d, --debug turn Lintian's debug messages ON
69 --print-version print unadorned version number and exit
71 -i, --info give detailed info about tags
72 -I, --display-info display "I:" tags (normally suppressed)
73 -l X, --unpack-level X set default unpack level to X
74 -o, --no-override ignore overrides
75 --show-overrides output tags that have been overriden
76 --color never/always/auto disable, enable, or enable color for TTY
77 -U X, --unpack-info X specify which info should be collected
78 -m, --md5sums check md5sums when processing a .changes file
79 --allow-root suppress lintian's warning when run as root
80 Configuration options:
81 --cfg CONFIGFILE read CONFIGFILE for configuration
82 --lab LABDIR use LABDIR as permanent laboratory
83 --archivedir ARCHIVEDIR location of Debian archive to scan for packages
84 --dist DIST scan packages in this distribution (e.g. sid)
85 --section RELEASE scan packages in this section (e.g. main)
86 --arch ARCH scan packages with architecture ARCH
87 --root ROOTDIR use ROOTDIR instead of /usr/share/lintian
88 Package selection options:
89 -a, --all process all packages in distribution
90 -b, --binary process only binary packages
91 -s, --source process only source packages
92 --udeb process only udeb packages
93 -p X, --packages-file X process all files in file (special syntax!)
96 Where to find more information
97 ------------------------------
99 Details about the `lintian' and the `lintian-info' commands can be
100 found in the manual pages lintian(1) and lintian-info(1),
103 General information about Lintian and how to use it can be found in
104 the `Lintian User's Manual' at
105 file:/usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/index.html
107 Weekly updated Lintian reports from all packages in the Debian
108 distribution can be found at the Lintian home page at
110 http://www.debian.org/lintian/
116 Any comments, critics, or suggestions about Lintian or related topics
117 are highly appreciated by the authors! Please contact
118 <lintian-maint@debian.org>. Thanks!
122 Christian Schwarz <schwarz@debian.org>, Mar 14, 1998.
123 Updated by Frank Lichtenheld, Apr 14, 2004 (Lintian 1.23.0).