Lintian ReportsBETA

empty-binary-package

This binary package appears to be empty, and its description does not say that it's a metapackage or a transitional package. This is often due to problems with updating debhelper *.install files during package renames or similar problems where installation rules don't put files in the correct place.

If the package is deliberately empty, please mention in the package long description one of the phrases "metapackage", "dummy", "dependency package", or "empty package".

Previously, Lintian also accepted the use of "virtual package". This was removed to avoid overloading the term. If you have been relying on the phrase "virtual package" to avoid this warning, please replace it with one of the others.

The tag is present in Lintian version 2.114.163. That is the most recent version we know about.

We use semantic versions. The patch number is a commit step indicator relative to the 2.114.0 release tag in our Git repository.

You can find the detection logic for this version at commit ea05801. For merge requests, please use the latest version in the Lintian check files/empty-package.

Visibility: warning

The following 74 source packages in the archive triggered the tag 126 times (in any Lintian version).

We found 41 overrides. The tag performed 67% of the time.