What is dh-virtualenv

dh-virtualenv is a tool that aims to combine Debian packaging with self-contained virtualenv based Python deployments. To do this, the package extends debhelper’s sequence by providing a new command in sequence, dh_virtualenv, which effectively replaces following commands from the sequence:

• dh_auto_install
• dh_python2
• dh_pycentral
• dh_pysupport

In the sequence the dh_virtualenv is inserted right after dh_perl.

Changelog

Following list contains most notable changes by version. For full list consult the git history of the project.

0.12 (unreleased)

• Deprecate --pypi-url in favour of --index-url
• Support upgrading pip to the latest release with --upgrade-pip flag.

0.11

• Allow passing explicit filename for requirements.txt using –requirements option. Thanks to Eric Larson for implementing!
• Ensure that venv is configured before starting any daemons. Thanks to Chris Lamb for fixing this!
• Make sure fix_activate_path updates all activate scripts. Thanks to walrusVision for fixing this!

0.10

• Backwards incompatible Fix installation using the built-in virtual environment on 3.4. This might break installation on Python versions prior to 3.4 when using –builtin-venv flag. Thanks to Elonen for fixing!
• Honor DH_VIRTUALENV_INSTALL_ROOT in build system. Thanks to Ludwig Hähne for implementing!
• Allow overriding virtualenv arguments by using the DH_VIRTUALENV_ARGUMENTS environment variable when using the build system. Thanks to Ludwig Hähne for implementing!
• Add option to skip installation of the actual project. In other words using --skip-install installs only the dependencies of the project found in requirements.txt. Thanks to Phillip O’Donnell for implementing!
• Support custom installation suffix instead of the package name via --install-suffix. Thanks to Phillip O’Donnell for implementing!

0.9

• Support using system packages via a command line flag --use-system-packages. Thanks to Wes Mason for implementing this feature!
• Introduce a new, experimental, more modular build system. See the Building packages with dh-virtualenv for documentation.
• Respect the DEB_NO_CHECK environment variable.

0.8

• Support for running triggers upon host interpreter update. This new feature makes it possible to upgrade the host Python interpreter and avoid breakage of all the virtualenvs installed with virtualenv. For usage, see the the Tutorial. Huge thanks to Jürgen Hermann for implementing this long wanted feature!
• Add support for the built-in venv module. Thanks to Petri Lehtinen!
• Allow custom pip flags to be passed via the --extra-pip-args flag. Thanks to @labeneator for the feature.

0.7

• Backwards incompatible Support running tests. This change breaks builds that use distutils. For those cases a flag --no-test needs to be passed.
• Add tutorial to documentation
• Don’t crash on debbuild parameters -i and -a
• Support custom source directory (debhelper’s flag -D)

0.6

First public release of dh-virtualenv