[ubuntu-uk] Publishing to the software centre

[Matthew Wild]

On 24 April 2014 14:50, Peter Smout <smoutpete at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> As a complete novice following this thread wit interest, I am put off
> compiling my small (but hopefully) useful prog to a .deb and will continue
> to call it from a script ;(
>
> This is a shame as I was hoping to expand my programme and and add a GUI,
> more as a project for me than anything, and maybe if all went well add it to
> the repo's but the world will just have to wait!!

It's certainly a learning curve. I have nothing but respect and
admiration for the people who diligently maintain packages in Debian
and Ubuntu on a day-to-day basis. When you stop to think about what
these massive projects accomplish - reliable repeatable builds for
tens of thousands of pieces of software across numerous architectures,
automatically resolving dependencies, conflicts, and managing versions
and safely rolling out security updates... it's quite amazing (at
least to me).

Every part of a Debian package is there for a reason, to help with
this making this process, this "machine", run as smoothly as possible.
It can be overwhelming at first, when all you want to do is deploy a
simple script or two, but it's a very useful skill to have under your
belt if you're doing development.

If your software is of general interest and you think it ought to be
in the Debian/Ubuntu archives, you may find someone already skilled
with packaging is willing to do this for you. Most software in
Debian/Ubuntu is not packaged by its authors, but by a dedicated
Debian/Ubuntu developer (the package 'maintainer') who already has the
necessary skills. You can read more about getting your software into
Debian and Ubuntu here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages

If you do want to learn to package yourself (which gives you a lot
more flexibility, as you are not relying on other peoples' free time),
there are guides such as:

  - https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
  - http://packaging.ubuntu.com/html/

And if you haven't tried it already, dh_make is a great tool to use
when you're starting out, as it will do 90% of the package creation
work for you.

Regards,
Matthew