Re: tool to create .deb for proprietary software?

[Matt Zagrabelny <mzagrabe@d.umn.edu>]

Hi Arno,

Comments inline.

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 4:24 PM, Arno Töll <arno@debian.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 23.08.2012 22:46, Matt Zagrabelny wrote:
>> I know I could use "ar" and "tar" to get things done, but wasn't sure
>> if there was a more elegant approach.
>
> Depending on your own ambition there are several approaches. The easiest
> and simplest way is to use "dpkg-deb -b" which does right what you asked
> for.

Hmmm. That looks slick. ;)

 A slightly more advanced way would be to use tools like
> checkinstall(1) which require some Makefile which installs files to the
> file system.
>
> The cleanest and most formidable solution is to build a regular Debian
> package like we do for Debian archives proper. The New Maintainers'
> Guide [1] has instructions to get started. In your case you can follow
> the usual instructions, just skip the build process (dh_auto_configure,
> dh_auto_build), as your stuff is shipped in binary form already.

Unfortunately I don't have the source code. Just an install .sh that
has a binary blob in the middle of it. I'm not sure if it would be
worth make a regular Debian package for such an infuriating "package".

Thanks for the advice, though.

Cheers,

-mz