Barry,
Figuring out how to package for Debian has a stiff learning curve (speaking as someone who is going through the process myself).
There are a couple of website that collect links to information that might be useful to you.
https://mentors.debian.net/intro-maintainers/
https://wiki.debian.org/Packaging
The references that I personally found most helpful were there following:
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/developers-reference
(Install the package and then read /usr/share/developers-reference/developers-reference.pdf)
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/maint-guide
(Install the package and then read /usr/share/doc/maint-guide/maint-guide.en.pdf)
Note that this document is considered outdated and replaced by https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debmake-doc/index.en.html but I found it to be a more useful read, even though they share an author. You will discover that almost all Debian documentation is outdated, because writing documentation is almost always less exciting than writing code. So, you almost always have to adjust anyway.
Also, if you decide to use Git, definitely check out the git-buildpackage documentation:
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/git-buildpackage
(Install the package and then read /usr/share/doc/git-buildpackage/manual-html/index.html)
On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 9:24:18 AM MST Barry Scott wrote:
> On 27/12/2022 11:16, Ole Streicher wrote:
> > Hi Barry,
> >
> > Barry Scott <barry@barrys-emacs.org> writes:
> >> I am build my first Debian package for Barry's Emacs
> >> (https:://barrys-emacs.org)
> >
> > Aside from Santiagos technical tips: If you really want to contribute
> > your package to the Debian distribution, you should also have a few
> > other things in mind:
> >
> > * Your package should come with a proper DFGS compliant [1] license. Your
> >
> > Github upstream package [2] doesn't have one, and it would be useful
> > (not only for Debian packaging) to add one there.
>
> I plan to state it is Apache-2.0 licensed. There is an issue to fix this.
>
> > * I would recommend to follow the usual procedures here. Specifically,
> >
> > you should open an "Intend To Package" (ITP) bug [3] to indicate your
> > packaging efforts.
>
> Happy to contribute bemacs and my other packages to debian.
>
> The others include scm-workbench, but that needs PyQt6 Scintilla
> to get packaged only PyQt5 Scintilla is packaged at the moment.
> Also I need to package PyPI xml-preferences (I'm upstream for that
> as well.
>
> I guess I need an account in the debian infrastructure to do the work
> under?
>
> Bare in mind that I know nothing about what is expected in terms of
> accounts, contrib agreements etc for debian.
>
> Learning debian's ways is like learning a foreign language, there is new
> grammar and vocabulary� I'm encountering. I know the Fedora RPM
> grammar and vocabulary� (I'm a Fedota packager).
>
> > * The target distribution for the packaging is "unstable" (sid). From
> >
> > there it migrates to the Debian distribution. It also migrates to
> > Ubuntu, Mint, and all the other derivative distributions.
>
> Cool.
>
> > * The packaging efforts should be separated from the software
> >
> > development itself and usually happens on the Salsa Gitlab server
> > [4]. I'd strongly recommend to allow team maintainance, to lower the
> > barrier of packaging-related contributions.
>
> I develop features and packaging together as they often play into each
> other.
>
> I support 4 OS (Fedora, macOS, Windows, netbsd) at the moment and want to
> add debian/ubuntu.
>
> Being able to experiment with packaging is valuable to me.
>
> I can use the native debian workflow for releasing to public consumption.
> As I do for Fedora packages I'm the maintainer for.
>
> Barry
>
> > Best regards
> >
> > Ole
> >
> >
> > [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> >
> > https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses
> >
> > [2] https://github.com/barry-scott/BarrysEmacs
> > [3] https://wiki.debian.org/ITP
> > [4] https://salsa.debian.org
--
Soren Stoutner
soren@stoutner.com
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