help on ubuntu packaging

[Scott Howard]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 6:54 AM, David Henningsson
<david.henningsson at canonical.com> wrote:
> On 2010-10-26 13:26, travis+ml-ubuntu-devel-discuss at subspacefield.org
> wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I'm packaging up some stuff, and finding that the process is, well,
>> confusing.
> I believe this list is what you're looking for:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu-mentors

The MOTU-mentoring is currently inactive, but there are some great resources at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Packaging/Training
(The IRC training sessions are great time to ask questions, or find
the instructors on IRC after class)

If you want general packaging help, also check out the debian resources:
http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/
http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
IRC:
#debian-mentors on OFTC IRC network
debian-mentors at lists.debian.org
http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/

> I've got something that works with older debhelper stuff (prior to the
> rules file being made into one target/command), and not sure how to
> port what I was doing in rules to the new format.  Specifically, I
> want to make some files (a log file) owned by someone other than root.

Switching to debhelper 7 (one target rules files) should be
straight-forward, this is probably a discussion that we should have on
IRC or debian-mentors (since it doesn't have to do specifically ubuntu
development and we don't want to clog up people's mailboxes). You can
upload your package to http://mentors.debian.net and ask questions
specific questions on ubuntu IRC or debian-mentors mailing lists.

As for changing permissions: Check to make sure you're not violating
policy (some directories must be owned by root), but if your package
needs user specific log files, you can create them in ~/.{packagename}
using a wrapper when you launch the program or by hacking the source
code to look for it in {HOME}.

Regards,
Scott