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Debian Packaging

pretty much the same with Ubuntu

2003-2024 Alex Myczko tar@debian.org

Introduction

We will package mguesser for Debian. Knowledge about Makefiles, configure and shell scripting or C programming can be very helpful. Man and the manpages are also very useful. Also have a look at help2man or pod2man. I want to guide you packaging mguesser from the beginning to the end.

What you will need

A development environment, some utilities and debhelper which we will install like this:

# apt-get install binutils cpp cpio dpkg-dev file gcc make patch \
                  dh-make debhelper devscripts fakeroot lintian \
                  debian-policy developers-reference \
		  man-db manpages reportbug dput-ng decopy

(or build-essential lintian debhelper dh-make devscripts fakeroot) Setting up the environment. Of course you fill in your email address and your full name and choose your favourite editor, these settings is what I use:

$ export DEBEMAIL="tar@debian.org"
$ export DEBFULLNAME="Gürkan Myczko"
$ export EDITOR=mcedit

Choosing software you want to package for Debian

For this course I have chosen mguesser, as I packaged it already and it is not too hard (single binary) to get you started. This should give you an idea what it is like. For Debian the package

  • must be DFSG compliant
  • must have some public download place (usually http/https, or ftp)
  • naming should be software-maj.min.tar.gz and unpacks into software-maj.min/

Build systems

There are plenty of build systems. The most classical ones are make; make install ./configure; make; make install mk (Plan 9) cmake (ccmake is handy sometimes) scons qmake (for qt based software) gnustep-make bazel Plenty more to check out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_build_automation_software

Write an ITP bug report

https://github.com/alexmyczko/autoexec.bat/blob/master/deb2itp

Software without release

https://github.com/alexmyczko/autoexec.bat/blob/master/git2deb

Packaging the software

First you need to get the source of the software. Then put it in some directory. There you unpack the software, usually

$ tar xzvf software-2.1.tar.gz
$ ln -s software-2.1.tar.gz software_2.1.orig.tar.gz
$ cd software-2.1/
$ dh_make

dh_make will make a directory called debian/ with a few files in it. Now your task is to fill them. I usually start with control, then edit copyright. There is also changelog, rules, dirs and more. In rules you will find some dh commands, they are all from debhelper. Each of them has a manpage, please refer to man debhelper for details, as well as the Debian New Maintainers' Guide. Read more about the Debian Policy Manual. Updating the debian/changelog is done with dch or debchange (symlink).

When you think the thing is ready, you can start building the package

The most important files are probably debian/changelog, debian/control, debian/copyright, debian/rules and the following ones are helpful debian/clean files to be removed that get generated at build time (make clean) debian/install files to be installed debian/manpages manpage(s) to be installed

Try running decopy to get started with a debian/copyright

Installing build dependencies can be easily done with apt build-dep .

You will find licensecheck -r . | grep -v UNKNOWN useful during the writing of debian/copyright.

$ debuild

If you want to build without tests, prepend your command with DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck. Use -S to only build the source package.

When things are built you should check the package using

$ lintian -vi mguesser_0.2-1_i386.changes

If that says all is right (no Warnings or Errors). You can install it with

$ sudo dpkg -i mguesser_0.2-1_i386.deb

You must check if the program works. Also make sure the manpage is working. From what I experienced I will most likely to have go through this several times.

Never forget reportbug, it will be your friend. When you package something from http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/requested you can close the bug also with an e-mail to -done@bugs.debian.org. If you don't know what to package, check orphaned packages.

It can be helpful to look at how other packages are packaged

$ apt-get source package

And being in touch with upstream is important, contact them somehow. My debian/ directory for mguesser. Here is my Makefile changes.

Ensuring completeness of Build-Depends Use sbuild to ensure build-depends are complete:

apt-get install sbuild
mkdir -p /srv/chroot/sid
sbuild-createchroot --include=eatmydata,ccache,gnupg unstable /srv/chroot/sid http://deb.debian.org/debian

Now test your packages with: sbuild -d sid yourpackage_version-rev.dsc

After Work

Adding a screenshot to the package is recommended: http://screenshots.debian.net/ Check Lintian output: https://lintian.debian.org/ I did not go into detail with debian/watch. Make sure it builds on as many architectures as possible: https://buildd.debian.org/ If your software works with data files, that can be detected with the file(5) utility, send patches for its detection.

Satisfying build depends

You can either use apt-get build-dep . # or pkg name or mk-build-deps

Github of Debian

It's called https://salsa.debian.org and based on gitlab. You can download projects from there using gbp clone, and create the orig.tar ball using gbp export-orig.

Enabling auto building for non-free/contrib

Send a mail to non-free@buildd.debian.org explaining the license allows distributing binary packages.

When packages.debian.org or tracker.debian.org is slow

Use https://incoming.debian.org for dget.

Other useful links

http://snapshot.debian.org/

http://archive.debian.org/

Help Debian

Get listed at https://www.debian.org/users/

Install popularity-contest and visit https://popcon.debian.org

Everything else

Links

A good source for free software https://github.com, and https://codeberg.org/. All Debian project participants https://www.debian.org/devel/people

Other packaging systems (ports, pkg, rpm):