Standalone ---------- Use `fatrace` to record all file access during an `sbuild` run and find those build dependencies which have their files never needed. You need superuser privileges to run this script because of `fatrace`. You need to copy `findunusedbd.sh` into `/home` so best run all of this inside a chroot to prevent a mess. Run it like follows: $ ./run.sh foo.dsc bar.dsc [...] This will call sbuild like this for each `dsc` given: $ sbuild \ --chroot-setup-commands='/home/findunusedbd.sh chroot-setup' \ --pre-realbuild-commands='/home/findunusedbd.sh pre-realbuild' \ --post-realbuild-commands='/home/findunusedbd.sh post-realbuild' This needs the --pre-realbuild-commands and --post-realbuild-commands to exist which can be added to sbuild by applying `0001-add-pre-realbuild-commands-and-post-realbuild-comman.patch` to it. The first pass will use `fatrace` to find build dependencies on packages with files that are never used during the whole build. Since many of these are gonna be meta packages, a second pass replaces the candidate package with a fake equivs package of same name and version but without dependencies and tries to rebuild. Both passes are done for `--arch-all` and `--no-arch-all`. Any unused dependencies can then be found by investigating the `*.arch-all.unusedbd.real` and `*.no-arch-all.unusedbd.real`. The result from the former can permanently be dropped from the `Build-Depends`. The result from the latter can be added to `Build-Depends-Indep`. Schroot setup ------------- Create the schroot: $ sudo sbuild-createchroot --make-sbuild-tarball=/var/lib/sbuild/sid-amd64.tar.gz sid `mktemp -d` http://127.0.0.1:3142/snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20140601T000000Z Enter the schroot: $ sbuild-shell source:sid-amd64-sbuild Make apt ignore the `Valid-Until` header: $ echo 'Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80-nocheckvaliduntil Install `equivs`: $ apt-get install equivs --no-install-recommends Bugs ---- - maybe add list of packages whose files are never used but modify the build nevertheless (like `hardening-wrapper`) - use reproducible builds to check that the output is the same - when investigating which build dependencies are unused, virtual packages are not taken into account - maybe the fake equivs package can be built outside the schroot to avoid the additional dependencies for installing equivs - fatrace suffers from [bug#722901](https://bugs.debian.org/722901) which can be seen when trying to compile `lsof` Feature Requests ---------------- - build with `DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck` once it is possible to add `` License ------- Consider everything in this repository in the public domain. It is a gross hack and I do not care what you do with it.