Installing software in user friendly way

[Lee Braiden]

On Tuesday 12 Jul 2005 13:14, Henning Kilset Pedersen wrote:
> Yes, it is. Can you elaborate more on those specific ways of doing
> things? Is synaptic able to handle this somehow, for instance?

The two main ways are via dh_make, and checkinstall.

dh_make helps you to make a debian package from source files, just as a 
package maintainer might do.  It's a very-streamlined process though, where 
you just answer a question or two, and then build the package.  Basically,

* untar non-debian (or non-ubuntu) source files into a directory
* cd into that directory
* run dh_make, and answer the questions
* if the package uses QT, then edit the configure line in debian/rules to 
specify where qt is, by adding --with-qt-includes=/usr/include/qt3
* run sudo dpkg-buildpackage to build the package
* install the package with sudo dpkg -i

checkinstall is more of a hack, but it basically works.  What it does is 
monitor the make install command to keep a list of files installed, etc., and 
then it makes a debian package which knows about those files.  To use it, you 
just build the software according to its instructions, and then use the 
install command in the instructions through checkinstall.  So usually:

* untar the source
* cd to the directory
* run ./configure
* run make
* run sudo checkinstall  make install

-- 
Lee Braiden
http://www.DigitalUnleashed.com
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