On Wednesday 03 November 2004 19:32, Rene Engelhard wrote: --cut-- > > 2. The number of files that I have to create within the /debian > > directory is difficult to deal with, and having to create the /debian > > directory within my application directory and being forced to name my > > application directory according to debian rules is very irritating. > > You don't need to do that manally. dh_make gives you a template. You need > to adjust that a bit, though, for your needs...
I'd add that there are also some debian specific things that no other packaging system on this planet knows about or can handle - debconf templates, apt watch ... Of cource noone forces you to use them. It would be very confusing if everything is put in one file (say debian/rules) ... that's why the tasks are separated in several files. --cut-- > > Second, why can't I create packages with standard unix commands? Why > > can't I say something like: > > $ tar cvzf data.tgz myapplication/* > > $ tar czvf control.tgz control > > $ tar czvf mypackage-0.1.deb data.tgz control.tgz > > man ar, man tar, man deb > > you *could* do that manually, read man deb for the exact structure - as deb > ist just an ar archive with two tar archives and one file. But it is *far* > easier to get a package right with the "normal" way... > > > My main complaint here, is that we really want to be able to build the > > debian packages from any developer workstation. Since we don't impose > > operating system requirements on developers, we can't expect debian to > > be on all workstations. > > You can't do that with rpm either. You need rpm installed anyhow. > Same with debian. I would add that if one knows what s/he is doing, then simple/generic things like mkdir, cp, echo might be explored... and of cource we need dpkg-deb on one host installed to assemble the deb: # mkdir -p wsver/usr/bin wsver/DEBIAN # cp wsver wsver/usr/bin # echo "Package: wsver" > wsver/DEBIAN/control # echo "Version: 1" >> wsver/DEBIAN/control # echo "Architecture: i386" >> wsver/DEBIAN/control # echo "Maintainer: You <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" >> wsver/DEBIAN/control # echo "Description: Check web server version" >> wsver/DEBIAN/control # dpkg-deb -b wsver dpkg-deb: building package `wsver' in `wsver.deb'. The things could be simple or complex, depends of what and who is doing them ;-) -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 <keyserver.bu.edu ; pgp.mit.edu> fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB
