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Re: developing .deb packages for embedded systems



On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:47:58 -0700 (PDT)
varun_shrivastava <varun.celunite@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> hi,
>  i m working on a project which develops linux based OS for embedded
> devices.
> Uptill now we have not dpkg'ed any of our code. But now we planning to move
> to dpkg'ing all of our code.

Have you looked at emdebian-tools?

> As i can't use already available .deb packages, i have to start every thing
> from scratch.

You could use the Emdebian .deb packages. IMHO this is your main
problem - you NEED to use the already available .deb packages (as your
source) in order to cross-build sensible .deb packages because a .deb
is not just a wrapper around upstream 'make install', it is a powerful
format that has multiple ways of handling upstream.

You can't "bolt-on" dpkg as if it was just an option to tar or
automake. Doing all the "debianising" of upstream AFTER cross-building
is simply re-inventing the wheel. The Debian .deb is known to compile
natively on the Debian architectures and produce a usable .deb - using
the source that generates that .deb (including the patches used by
Debian) means that you end up with a usable cross-built .deb. During
the cross-build, you can make whatever adjustments you want to the
source to build a smaller package or drop certain features etc.

Use 'apt-get source' instead of 'wget upstream_url.tar.gz' - use
emdebian-tools.

> We use scratchbox as cross compilation tool. 

To build a .deb, you should be using debian cross-compilation tools -
dpkg-cross and debhelper.

> Any advice regarding where to start with will be helpful

It's very difficult to go from upstream source to a .deb in any
"standard" or "automated" manner. Each package requires customised
debian packaging and that already exists in the native package. Far
easier to start off with debian packages as your source and use the
Debian packaging to assist in creating a customised .deb. That is what
emdebian-tools is intended to do.

Quite how that fits in with scratchbox I have no idea - Riku?

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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