packaging, modify a patched package

[Loïc Martin]

Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y) wrote:
> Hi all
> when I download and extract the source of a package, I mostly find 
> patches in it.
> It's OK.
> But know, I want to modifiy those packages to fit my needs:
> What is the process to follow in these case?

It depends if you want to send your modifications back to 
Ubuntu/Debian/Upstream, or just modify the package once for your 
personal use (but if you'd want to modify new versions of the package 
too, you'd look for the same solutions as when you want to send your 
modifications to somebody else.

If it's just once and for you, you can just edit the code/file you want 
(the code is already patched with Ubuntu/Debian patches when you 
decompress the source either with apt-get source or dpkg-source -x), 
save, then rebuild.

For all other cases, you'll have to identify the patch system used, then 
do you modifications using that same patch system.

See for example 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/PatchSystems?action=show&redirect=MOTU%2FHowToPatch

Loïc