[ubuntu-uk] Building .deb packages

[Christopher Swift]

On 10 February 2010 21:40, Anton Piatek <anton at piatek.co.uk> wrote:
> On 10 February 2010 21:11, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com> wrote:
>> On 10 February 2010 20:58, Liam Wilson <liamwilson93 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>  Out of curiosity, can I ask why it's worse to package software in a .deb
>>> file in the long run?
>>>
>>
>> I think Anton was saying that it's worse to package binary debian
>> packages, not debian packages as a whole. We create source packages
>> which can be uploaded to (for example) launchpad PPAs, and built
>> (compiled) for multiple architectures including i386, AMD64, LPIA and
>> ARM. If you build binary packages then the onus is on you to rebuild
>> for other architectures.
>
> That is indeed what I meant.
> Doing a debian source package allows you to rebuild easily and use the
> advanced features available through debian helper scripts.
> Creating the folder layouts and using dpkg-deb (or zipping it up
> manually) to build *only* the .deb without using the debian
> buildscripts may seem simple at first but has serious limitations, not
> least rebuilding for another architecture via a PPA or similar
>
> Anton
>
>
> --
> Anton Piatek
> email: anton at piatek.co.uk
> blog/photos:                    http://www.strangeparty.com
> pgp: [74B1FA37] (http://www.strangeparty.com/anton.asc)
> fingerprint: 7401 96D3 E037 2F8F 5965  A358 4046 71FD 74B1 FA37
>
> No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message, however, a
> significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
>
I am unable o tell which level you are at from the emails but the
Ubuntu packaging guide may still be of help for you.  You can view the
guide here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide

All the best,
Chris.