Need very basics docs

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

On 19 March 2010 19:32, Lakshmanan <lucky.developer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was reading the Packaging guide in wiki.ubuntu.com and made a package
> out of hello program. I just followed the steps like a robot. But I
> couldnot understand much from that wiki. Certain things are really
> confusing.
>
> When they talk about source, I don't know whether it refers to upstream
> author source or the source package (deb,dsc,diff). Also I could not get
> the basics of exactly what these repos are for, packaging, building
> etc., All I know is I can download a deb of a program and install it in
> a system.
>

Source good be reffered in the documentation in different context.

Usually source is the upstream tarball - usually *.tar.gz.

Source package is something that maintainer creates and it consists of:

1) Source tarball(s) - renamed as upstream_version.orig.tar.gz
2) dsc file - a control file with checksums and digital signature of maintainer
3) diff.gz - all the bits maitainer adds to source ball debian/
directory patches etc.

This is layout of a typical v1.0 source package (3 files) there are
other formats for source package which can use different compressions
and a tarball instead of a patch for maintainer bits.

read man dpkg-source if you are interested



> I also watched MOTU video in youtube, he seems to be explaining really
> well but he skips the details for beginners like me. Please point me
> towards the very basic docs of debian packaging.
>

Well MOTU guide and debian new-maintainers guide are usually canonical
from zero to hero packaging docs.

> I was reading the debian new maintainers guide
> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/index.en.html#contents .
> Is it ok if I read this doc instead of ubuntu packaging guide ? Are
> there very big differences better debian docs and ubuntu docs ?
>

There aren't big differences. We are using same tools to build our and
Debian packages. There are differences in policy though with respect
to maintainer names, version numbers and how we work (launchpad vs
BTS; bzr-builddeb vs different-tools-each-debian-developer-picks) etc

> Please help :)
>

Hope this helps.