= debbuild =

`debbuild` was written to be able to create packages that will install cleanly on Debian systems without going through the head-beating I found was required to follow the Debian New Maintainer's Guide, and pretty much any other Debian packaging guide.  (Things seem to have gotten better since I originally started `debbuild`.) It uses the build process and command-line options of `rpmbuild`, but produces packages that will install on Debian systems. Please note, it is theoretically //possible// to create Debian Packages with `debbuild` (or at least, `.deb` packages that comply with [http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ Debian Policy]), however no particular effort was made in this direction.

As an interesting bonus, if you're careful about filesystem paths, commands, pre/post/(un)install scripts, etc, etc, you may be able to write one spec file that you can use to create packages that will install and work correctly on **//both//** Debian(ish) and !RedHat(ish) systems - and any derivatives or relatives that follow [http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/refspecs/LSB_1.2.0/gLSB/swinstall.html FHS guidelines].

I consider `debbuild` pretty much mature and complete - it does what I wrote it to do, and I'll only tweak it if I find a new edge case that's handled badly, or discover that some feature I've copy-pasted from a `.spec` file I used on an RPM-based distro doesn't work.

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== Documentation ==

Lightly retouched [wiki:debbuild-doc POD]

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== Download ==

`debbuild` is just a Perl script.  So long as the handful of supporting system binaries are available, it should work fine just downloaded and dropped in a handy place.  Get the latest version from SVN:

[https://secure.deepnet.cx/svn/debbuild/trunk/debbuild debbuild]

Debian dependencies:

  Depends:
* `perl`
* `build-essential`
* `pax` (used for `.sdeb` source packages)
* `fakeroot`

  Recommends:
* `patch`
* `bzip2`
* `xz-utils`

  Suggests:
* `rpm` (to confirm your `.spec` file is really sane)
* `subversion` 

A tarball including a spec file to build a debbuild package:[[BR]]
[https://secure.deepnet.cx/releases/debbuild/debbuild-0.11.3.tar.gz debbuild-0.11.3.tar.gz]

Or check out from SVN:[[BR]]
https://secure.deepnet.cx/svn/debbuild/

[/log/ Changelog]

A demo tarball I've been using to test debbuild against rpmbuild's behaviour.[[br]]
[https://secure.deepnet.cx/releases/debbuild/empty.tar.gz empty.tar.gz] (Yes, it's somewhat misnamed.)

debbuild is distributed under the terms of the [https://secure.deepnet.cx/releases/debbuild/COPYING GNU GPL version 2+].