How do I apply a patch to installed software?

[meowclown]

Hi,

I have a bug in libguestfs (1895623 – Can't start appliance because of epoch:version-release) and I should a patch a specific file: pacman: Handle release field which is not an integer. · libguestfs/supermin@1b6802b · GitHub

But I have installed libguestfs and supermin from the official repos and don’t know how to patch which file in my system.

Can anybody help me with that?

[Yochanan]

@meowclown

I should a patch a specific file

That’s not a file that’s installed as there’s only a binary and man page in the supermin package. That file is part of the source code. Patches are created before building and packaging software, not after installation.

The latest stable release of supermin is 5.2.0 released back in March. The commit you’re referencing has three parents that were created after the stable release.

The Arch community package already has a patch for that same file that was created before those commits were made.

You have a few options:

1. Wait for the next stable release of supermin.

2. File a bug report for supermin and reference the original Bug 1858625 , not your duplicate. That way, the Arch package maintainer may merge those commits into the patch if it’s viable.

3. Merge the commits with Arch’s patch yourself and rebuild the package.

4. Create a VCS package for supermin either pulling from that static commit or just pull straight from master. You’ll possibily need to rebuild libguestfs if not create a VCS package for it as well to match.

[meowclown]

Thanks for that explanation. I am not so familiar with the patching of files and so I will wait for the next stable release of supermin.