Packaging

Packaging

• Build Tarballs with XZ: Build different types of tarballs

  make dist            # .tar.gz
  make dist-bzip2      # .tar.bz2
  make dist-lzma       # .tar.lzma
  make dist-xz         # .tar.xz
  
  # Extract with
  tar zxf archive.tar.gz
  tar jxf archive.tar.bz2
  tar Jxf archive.tar.lzma
  tar Jxf archive.tar.xz
  

• Install Debian package build tools

  apt-get install devscripts build-essential
  

• Rebuild Debian package (without apt-source)

  mkdir build && cd build
  # Download xxxx.debian.tar.gz from package page
  # Download xxxx.orig.tar.gz from package page (or upstream homepage)
  # Download xxxx.dsc from package page
  
  # Extract/patch package files
  dpkg-source -x <name>.dsc
  
  # Install missing deps reported by
  dpkg-checkbuilddeps
  
  # Build using one of the following
  cd <package source dir>
  debuild -us -uc
  dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
  

• Rebuild Debian package (with apt-source)

  mkdir build && cd build
  apt-get source <name>
  apt-get build-dep <name>
  
  # And build
  

• Patch a Debian package by hand

  # Extract .deb
  dpkg-deb -R <package name> tmp
  
  # Or if -R switch is not yet available
  dpkg-deb -x <package name> tmp
  dpkg-deb -e <package name> tmp/DEBIAN
  
  # Rebuild with
  dpkg-deb -b tmp <package name>
  

• Debhelper: How to solve when backporting

  dh: Sorry, but 8 is the highest compatibility level supported by this debhelper.
  

  Change the required version in

  echo 8 >debian/compat
  

• Debian Package Hardening for C/C++

• AppData freedesktop.org specification: Standard for end user SW description markup.

• AppData - Validation:

  appdata-validate /usr/share/appdata/myapplication.appdata.xml