On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 08:47:48AM +0100, martin f krafft wrote: > also sprach Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> [2004.12.30.0807 +0100]: > > > We would like to know which files are absolutely necessary for creating > > > .deb package (assuming u have all the source files needed). > > > > Depends on how you want to create the .deb. Bare minimum is ar, tar, gzip, > > and cp, more or less. > > Unfortunately, ar(1) won't suffice as it cannot create BSD-style > archives. DEB files are BSD ar archives, not GNU ar. Thus, you need > dpkg-source. Hmm, do you have a definitive reference for that? All I can find from a quick google on seemingly relevant terms is a year-old e-mail exchange between Goswin and aba about a specification of the file format, which is fairly disjoint and doesn't really explain the issue properly. > > > We know about control file,changelog,rules,conffile, n scripts like > > > postrm,prerm,preinst,postinst. > > > > None of those files (as provided in your average Debian source package) are > > absolutely required to create a .deb format package, although you'll have a > > hard time getting it into Debian without several of them. > > You need a control file. Whether that is debian/control (standard > source package), or DEBIAN/control (binary package) does not matter > though. However, if you use debian/control, you also need > debian/changelog. Why do you need debian/changelog if you're using debian/control? Surely there could be an alternate means of specifying the package version number, since you're not restricted to using the Usual Debian Tools -- remember, absolute minimalism here... It's actually quite a fun mental game, this: "What do I *really* need, rather than what I'm accustomed to needing". - Matt
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