Hi Peter, On Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 08:16:22AM -0700, pe...@easthope.ca wrote: > peter@joule:/home/peter$ dpkg -l | grep qemu-system-x86 > ii qemu-system-x86 1:3.1+dfsg-8+deb10u8 > i386 QEMU full system emulation binaries (x86) > > How is the "version number" interpreted?
It's ony important within Debian so aside from some conventions it does *have* to correspond to anything. > "1:" ? This is referred to within Debian and derivatives as "an epoch". It is typically used when the format of the rest of the version needs to change in ways that would not otherwise guarantee that subsequent versions are considered newer than previous versions. Something with an epoch of 1: will be considered newer than something without an epoch, and if an epoch happened again then it would be 2: and that would be newer than anything that starts with no epoch or with 1: as an epoch. > "3.1" qemu release number? Yes, it is desirable to match the Debian package version with the upstream version that it's based upon. Sometimes this is done incorrectly and it has to be fixed and then a typical convention is to use another suffix of "-reallyx.y.z". > "dfsg-8" ? A convention indicating that the package includes some number of Debian-specific changes to make the package comply with Debian Free Software Guidelines. For example, some documentation contains invariant sections that no one has permission to change and those don't fit what Debian considers to be "free", so they can get stripped out. https://wiki.debian.org/GFDLPositionStatement > "deb10u8" Debian 10, update 8? Yes, a convention saying that the basis for this package is the version that first appeared in release 10 and this is the 8th update to it since then. > Additional ideas? There are a lot of other conventions in use (the "-really" one being one example) and I'm not sure if they are all listed out somewhere. > I checked /https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages for an explanation. > Nothing relevant. If anywhere, I would expect it to be in documentation aimed at Debian developers and contributors. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting