Debian Documentation Project VCS

The Debian Documentation Project stores its web pages and much of the manual text on the Debian Salsa service at salsa.debian.org, which is Debian's GitLab instance. Please read the Salsa documentation for more information about how this service works.

Everybody can download the sources from the Salsa service. Only members of the Debian Documentation Project can update files.

Accessing the sources in git

You can use a web interface to access the files individually and see changes on each project at https://salsa.debian.org/ddp-team/

For downloading an entire manual, direct access to the git server is often a better option. You need the git package on your own machine.

Cloning a git repository anonymously (read-only)

Use this command to download all the files for one project:

git clone https://salsa.debian.org/ddp-team/release-notes.git

Do the same for every project you want to clone locally.

Cloning a git repository with push privileges (read-write)

Before accessing the git server using this method you have to be granted write access to it first. Please read how to request push permission first.

Use this command to download all the files for one project:

git clone git@salsa.debian.org:ddp-team/release-notes.git

Do the same for every project you want to clone locally.

Fetching changes from the remote git repository

To update your local copy with any changes made by other people, enter the manuals directory and run the command:

git pull

Obtaining push privileges

Push privileges are available to anyone who wishes to participate in writing the manuals. We generally request that you have submitted a couple of useful patches first.

After creating your account on Salsa, please request push privileges by clicking Request to join on the group or any of the specific projects under https://salsa.debian.org/ddp-team/. Please follow it up with an email to debian-doc@lists.debian.org explaining the track record of your work on Debian.

Once your request is approved, you'll be part of either the ddp-team group or one of its projects.

Automatic update mechanism

The published web pages of the manual text are generated on www-master.debian.org as part of the regular web site rebuilding process, which happens every four hours.

The script does a svn export --force svn://svn.debian.org/svn/ddp/manuals, and then make -C trunk publish.

The makefile is set up to rebuild each subdirectory (that contains maintained documentation), and to install the files from each subdirectory in doc/manuals/ subdirectory of the web site. The subdirectory makefiles are derived from manuals/standard.makefile.

The documentation files generated by the update script can be found at https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/.

The log files generated by the update script can be found at https://www-master.debian.org/build-logs/ddp/

Note that this process regenerates the /doc/manuals/ directory. The contents of the /doc/ directory is generated either from webwml or from other scripts, such as those which extract certain manuals from their packages.