README file for Lintian
=======================

Disclaimer
----------

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE USE OF LINTIAN:

  1. Lintian is not finished yet and will probably never be. Please don't
    use Lintian as a reference for Debian policy. Lintian might miss a lot
    of policy violations while it might also report some violations by
    mistake. If in doubt, please check out the policy manuals.

  2. The Debian policy gives the maintainers a lot of freedom. In most
    cases, the guidelines included in the manuals allow exceptions. Thus,
    if Lintian reports a policy violation on a package and you think this
    is such an exception (or if you think Lintian has a bug itself) please
    contact the authors of Lintian about this. There is an `override'
    file which tells Lintian about policy exceptions.

  3. Please DO NOT use Lintian to file bug reports (neither single ones nor
    mass bug reports). This is done by authors of Lintian already and
    duplication of efforts and bug reports should be avoided! If you think
    a certain bug is `critical', and should be reported/fixed immediately,
    please contact the maintainer of the corresponding package and/or the
    Lintian maintainers.

  4. Any feedback about Lintian is welcomed! Please send your comments to
    <lintian-maint@debian.org>.


Running Lintian for the first time
----------------------------------

Here is what you have to do at minimum to get lintian up and running:

  1. Install the `lintian' package

  2. Run lintian over your packages:

	$ lintian <something>.deb
	$ lintian <something>.udeb
	$ lintian <something>.dsc
	$ lintian <something>.changes

(Yes, Lintian is really easy to use! ;-)


Command line options of the lintian command
-------------------------------------------

  Syntax: lintian [action] [options] [--] [packages] ...

  (Please refer to the manual page lintian(1) for details.)

  Actions:
    -S, --setup-lab           set up static lab
    -R, --remove-lab          remove static lab
    -c, --check               check packages (default action)
    -C X, --check-part X      check only certain aspects
    -X X, --dont-check-part X don't check certain aspects
    -u, --unpack              only unpack packages in the lab
    -r, --remove              remove package from the lab
  General options:
    -h, --help                display short help text
    -v, --verbose             verbose messages
    -V, --version             display Lintian version and exit
    -d, --debug               turn Lintian's debug messages ON
    --print-version           print unadorned version number and exit
  Behaviour options:
    -i, --info                give detailed info about tags
    -I, --display-info        display "I:" tags (normally suppressed)
    -l X, --unpack-level X    set default unpack level to X
    -o, --no-override         ignore overrides
    --show-overrides          output tags that have been overriden
    --color never/always/auto disable, enable, or enable color for TTY
    -U X, --unpack-info X     specify which info should be collected
    -m, --md5sums             check md5sums when processing a .changes file
    --allow-root              suppress lintian's warning when run as root
  Configuration options:
    --cfg CONFIGFILE          read CONFIGFILE for configuration
    --lab LABDIR              use LABDIR as permanent laboratory
    --archivedir ARCHIVEDIR   location of Debian archive to scan for packages
    --dist DIST               scan packages in this distribution (e.g. sid)
    --section RELEASE         scan packages in this section (e.g. main)
    --arch ARCH               scan packages with architecture ARCH
    --root ROOTDIR            use ROOTDIR instead of /usr/share/lintian
  Package selection options:
    -a, --all                 process all packages in distribution
    -b, --binary              process only binary packages
    -s, --source              process only source packages
    --udeb                    process only udeb packages
    -p X, --packages-file X   process all files in file (special syntax!)


Where to find more information
------------------------------

Details about the `lintian' and the `lintian-info' commands can be
found in the manual pages lintian(1) and lintian-info(1),
respectively.

General information about Lintian and how to use it can be found in
the `Lintian User's Manual' at
file:/usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/index.html

Weekly updated Lintian reports from all packages in the Debian
distribution can be found at the Lintian home page at

      http://www.debian.org/lintian/


Feedback
--------

Any comments, critics, or suggestions about Lintian or related topics
are highly appreciated by the authors! Please contact
<lintian-maint@debian.org>.  Thanks!



Christian Schwarz <schwarz@debian.org>, Mar 14, 1998.
Updated by Frank Lichtenheld, Apr 14, 2004 (Lintian 1.23.0).