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Re: Debian my own software



Basile> I want to make a debian package (and later even make it into
Basile> the Debian distribution) of one of my own (GPL-ed) software.
Basile> 
Basile> What are the documents & tools that I must read?  The Debian
Basile> New Maintainers guide suppose that I debianize annother
Basile> program. But I do not want to patch my program (in the sense
Basile> of making a patch file) but to release the next version so
Basile> that it will be debianisable.

Francesco> In my personal experience the best thing to do is adding
Francesco> some kind of switch for autoconf - I use --enable-debian -
Francesco> in order to make easier the debianization of the program.
Francesco> Often, the great problem with third-party software is that
Francesco> file paths are wrong and it's not so easy changing them
Francesco> extensively in the sources. This is a typical area where a
Francesco> well-written autoconf script can enable FHS compliant
Francesco> paths, and really help in writing easy 'rules' files. This
Francesco> is just an example, but I think the concept is clear: you
Francesco> should avoid to replicate the DD tasks, but simplify his
Francesco> life.  See for instance my yardradius server, and its
Francesco> autoconf configure file.  Find it in woody/sarge.

In one case where I debianized my own program, I settled on a
structure like this:

1/ the debian/ subdirectory is part of the "upstream" source

2/ a target in the top-level Makefile builds the debian source package
(ie. dsc file and .tar.gz file, the latter is the same as the general
non-debian distribution tarball)

3/ to build .deb files, I use dpkg-buildpackage -b

hth 

-- 
Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A.
GPG: 433BA087  9C0F 194F 203A 63F7 B1B8  6E5A 8CA3 27DB 433B A087
EngSoc adopts market economy: cheap is wasteful, efficient is expensive.



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