How to compile Ubuntu packages (patching?) ???

[Phillip Susi]

Yuki Cuss wrote:
> Actually, apt-get source applies them for you! Note when you download:
> 
> dpkg-source: extracting gqview in gqview-2.0.1
> dpkg-source: unpacking gqview_2.0.1.orig.tar.gz
> dpkg-source: applying ./gqview_2.0.1-1ubuntu1.diff.gz
> celtic at xyrias:~/as$
> 
> It tells you where it will extract it, actually goes ahead and does it, 
> then applies the diff patch.
> 

Aye, apt-get source fetches the original tarball, the diff, extracts the 
tarball, and applies the diff to it for you.  If you really wanted to do 
that by hand, the typical way to do so is to extract the original 
tarball, cd into the extracted directory, then patch -p1 < ../foo.diff.


Also you might want to look into pbuilder on the wiki.  Typically when 
modifying packages I make some changes, use dch -i to bump the version 
and add an entry to the changelog, then debuild -S -sa to build a new 
source package from the modified directory, then pbuilder pbuild the new 
source package.  pbuilder handles the building for you in a chroot where 
it starts out clean and installs all of the build-deps that the package 
requires, then compiles it and builds a binary .deb you can install.

I suggest you start looking over https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU, there's 
lots of useful information there.