Basile> I want to make a debian package (and later even make it into Basile> the Debian distribution) of one of my own (GPL-ed) software. Basile> Basile> What are the documents & tools that I must read? The Debian Basile> New Maintainers guide suppose that I debianize annother Basile> program. But I do not want to patch my program (in the sense Basile> of making a patch file) but to release the next version so Basile> that it will be debianisable.
Francesco> In my personal experience the best thing to do is adding Francesco> some kind of switch for autoconf - I use --enable-debian - Francesco> in order to make easier the debianization of the program. Francesco> Often, the great problem with third-party software is that Francesco> file paths are wrong and it's not so easy changing them Francesco> extensively in the sources. This is a typical area where a Francesco> well-written autoconf script can enable FHS compliant Francesco> paths, and really help in writing easy 'rules' files. This Francesco> is just an example, but I think the concept is clear: you Francesco> should avoid to replicate the DD tasks, but simplify his Francesco> life. See for instance my yardradius server, and its Francesco> autoconf configure file. Find it in woody/sarge. In one case where I debianized my own program, I settled on a structure like this: 1/ the debian/ subdirectory is part of the "upstream" source 2/ a target in the top-level Makefile builds the debian source package (ie. dsc file and .tar.gz file, the latter is the same as the general non-debian distribution tarball) 3/ to build .deb files, I use dpkg-buildpackage -b hth -- Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A. GPG: 433BA087 9C0F 194F 203A 63F7 B1B8 6E5A 8CA3 27DB 433B A087 EngSoc adopts market economy: cheap is wasteful, efficient is expensive.
