Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
blog.ssundarraj.me
Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
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Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#2Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial).
Better tutorials:
https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDebianPackaging
https://wiki.debian.org/HowToPackageForDebian
https://people.debian.org/~osamu/maint-guide.html
https://wiki.debian.org/PackagingWithGit (because we are all going to git the world).
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#3> If you’re using OS X you can install it from homebrew (brew install dpkg).
While you can build a package of something simple like this example (static html), as soon as you want to compile a binary you're going to need to be building on the same environment as you're targeting.
I'd suggest removing any mention of OSX from the guide, or making it clear of the limitations of trying to build debs on it.
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#4Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
If on the other hand your goal is not to get a package in Debian, but only to quickly make a deb file, check out fpm: https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm.
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#5This is a tutorial for building quick one-off packages that won't ever be accepted by debian but that you can use with your own servers.
If you want to do that, you will be better off using Jordan Sissel's fpm tool: https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm It can take any project and quickly package it into a .deb, .rpm, .whatever package.
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#6Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
If on the other hand your goal is not to get a package in Debian, but only to quickly make a deb file, check out fpm: https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm .
Yep, the tutorial name should be how to quickly (low quality) create a deb package from simple source. :)
Also you can use equivs for creating quick (dummy?) packages :D
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#7Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
As a Debian user, it's a fine tutorial. Not every .deb is built for distribution with Debian itself. The only change I'd make is to clarify that what's being built here is a "for personal use only" package.
As to the debian.org guides, I've always found them obtuse precisely because they emphasise what you've got to do to get a package distributed, rather than the plain technical details of how they work.
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#8Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
Those are definitely better links, but a while back I needed a quick guide to make something that worked on private servers. I couldn't find a quickstart guide, so I decided to make one. Thanks for the feedback!
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#9Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
As a Debian user , it's a fine tutorial. Not every .deb is built for distribution with Debian itself. The only change I'd make is to clarify that what's being built here is a "for personal use only" package. As to the debian.org guides, I've always found them obtuse precisely because they emphasise what you've got to do to get a package distributed, rather than the plain technical details of how they work.
Packaging tutorial shouldn't be technical details how deb package works but how you build one (if you want those details you can also find them in Debian documentation but in the end deb package is just an ar file with it's set of make file that satisfies the installation in specific distro - this is the simple explanation). And no, the tutorial is misleading because Debian packaging means doing it for Debian, while creating a deb package for your personal need is different. You also have Ubuntu packaging guides and so on.
Re: Debian Packaging Tutorial – Feedback Welcome
#10Being a Debian maintainer, that is a very bad and low quality tutorial. You missed a lot of files in debian directory, even your example of control file is not good enough, you're using practices to build package which would reject your package from even entering Debian. Also lintian is a must be if you work with Debian (and it would really scream with your tutorial). Better tutorials: https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDe…
As a Debian user , it's a fine tutorial. Not every .deb is built for distribution with Debian itself. The only change I'd make is to clarify that what's being built here is a "for personal use only" package. As to the debian.org guides, I've always found them obtuse precisely because they emphasise what you've got to do to get a package distributed, rather than the plain technical details of how they work.
That's the motivation behind writing this. I've edited to include that this is for personal use only. I've found debian.org guides difficult to read as well. Thanks for the feedback!