bootstrapping a debian build system

[dman <dman@dman.ddts.net>]

For certain reasons, I must use a RedHat system for a certain task.
However, I need software that is more recent that RedHat provides.  I
could try and build from the upstream source packages and spend a lot
of time checking the configuration, or I could build from debian's
source packages.  We all know that the debian way is superior.  So the
hurdle, now, is to bootstrap a build system that will allow me to
build the debian packages from source.  I found that some packages
will mostly build almost out-of-the-box, but I seem to have circular
dependencies between debhelper and dpkg-dev.  Each needs the other for
its build process.  I don't actually need for real packages to me
made, just the ./debian/tmp directory to be filled in so I can
manually install the software (or make a cheesy rpm/tarball from it).

I will greatly appreciate it if someone is willing to help me
bootstrap this system.

TIA,
-D

-- 

Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
        Proverbs 16:18


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