[LAU] [OT] debianize it -- was: WNPP 594784 paulstretch

[Robin Gareus]

On 01/19/2012 05:38 AM, Louigi Verona wrote:
> Hello, Robin!
> 
> I apologize, I never created any debs. I did try to call
> git-buildpackage, but it said home/louigi is not a repository,

Looks like you forgot to cd into the source-dir. more below.

> so I guess I need to do some preparation, but most importantly -
> learn how to do this.

Maybe. If music is what you want to do, don't bother to become a DD.

OTOH (personal- and otherwise-) packages can save lots of time (e.g.
cleaning up /usr/local/ when a new project eventually hits your
distribution; or deploying custom software on more than one machine, and
sharing it easily)


Let's start at the end: building the package (from git)

 cd /tmp/
 git clone git://github.com/x42/paulstretch_cpp.git
 cd paulstretch_cpp/
 git checkout -b upstream origin/upstream
 git checkout master

 git-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b -us
 # ^ may complain about missing build-deps, apt-get install them
 # and re-run git-buildpackage
 ls ../*deb
 sudo dpkg -i ../*deb


The options "-rfakeroot -b -us" options are passed on to `debuild`, or
`dpkg-buildpackage`: -b: build binary only; -us: don't GPG sign it.


To create a source (and binary) packages directly from git, but built
them in a dedicated folder outside the git-repo:

 TMPDIR=/tmp/mybuild
 mkdir ${TMPDIR}
 git-buildpackage \
  --git-upstream-branch=upstream --git-debian-branch=master \
  --git-upstream-tree=branch \
  --git-no-pristine-tar --git-force-create \
  --git-export-dir=${TMPDIR}
  -rfakeroot # -us -uc

 #validate the package:
 lintian -i --pedantic `ls -t ${TMPDIR}/*changes | head -n1`

 #upload it somewhere -- ; man dput.cf; edit ~/.dput.cf
 dput somehost `ls -t ${TMPDIR}/*changes | head -n1`


> I remember I did want to do debs, but it turned out to be a time consuming
> and complex process.

It's less complex than you may think. As usual, the tricky part is the
politics - not technical issues. That's also the reason why PPAs have
become popular: don't bother about policy :)

For a minimal .deb package you /only/ need 4 files:
 debian/changelog -- version-num, target-distribution, history
 debian/control   -- package-name, dependencies, description
 debian/rules     -- build instructions (makefile)
 debian/compat    -- just a number.

Just check out some existing packages, copy, paste, edit. There's also
lots of documentation and tutorials around. It may take you only an hour
or two to learn the basics.

`dh_make` is an easy way initially populate debian/* with example files.

Beyond the basics, it can indeed become an odyssey, esp. if you want to
create binaries for all architectures, multiple distributions, etc.
(pbuilder, cowbuilder) yourself. but one usually outsources that.
Also, shared-libs require a bit of special attention..

In my experience, the most time-consuming part in debian packaging is
writing man-pages!!  Debian Policy section 12.1: "Each binary [..]
should have a manual page included in the same package". YMMV.

> I do plan to learn how to use PPA at least. Creating a PPA account might
> be useful.

They are dead-useful.

robin