> There have been a number of threads lately about where to find info > about how to create a .deb package from source. What I'd like to hear > from people who do this regularly is how complex and involved this is. <snip> > In both cases, it makes most sense to maintain a system the Debian way, > not partly by hand. I want dselect to remain happy whenever it touches > my system! So rather than just compile and install the tarballs, I'd > like to debianize them first.
Well, there already is any easy way to do this - apt-get source. This command downloads the Debianized source of a package. To use this command you probably want to do the following: 0. Make sure that you have apt-get and debhelper installed. 1. Add a deb-src line to your /etc/apt/sources.list - something like: deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free 2. Apt-get update 3. Download the source - apt-get source package_name (add a -b if you want to build the source without making any changes). 4. Make changes to the source if you so desire. Take a look at debian directory of the source, as well as the Makefile and configure script. 5. Build the package (if you didn't put -b in step 3). dpkg-buildpackage -uc 6. Install the deb(s) that result. Its really a pretty easy process, if your used to compile packages. The list I gave above assumes that you have all of the libraries install that you need. Often you have to install a *-dev package or two when trying to build a package from source. This also assumes that you want to compile the same version of the source that the package maintainer has used. If you want to build a different version, you may be able to get away with copying the debian directory from the Debianized source into the non-Debian source that you've downloaded. Anyway, that's the basic idea. Take a look at the documentation for apt-get and debhelper for more details. -- Jim Crumley | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Work: 612 624-6804 or -0378 |