Create .deb installation package

[d13r]

For APT - upload to Ubuntu PPA (or official repo if possible?).

[d13r]

PPA seems to be working at last:
https://launchpad.net/~bin-cli/+archive/ubuntu/bin-cli

Still need to:

• Wait for it to change from Pending to Published
• Test installing it
• Make the changelog link to https://github.com/bin-cli/bin-cli/releases
• Add the ability to override the changelog for re-releases
• Consider using copy-package instead of building the package multiple times
• Work out what is the best format for the PPA version numbers
• Strip the +ubuntu... part (or whatever) from the version number (especially in the README links)
• Generate and add the bash-completion script
• Consider adding the README file as documentation
• Release a new revision of the PPA
• Re-test it
• Release a new version
• Update the installation instructions

[d13r]

Consider using copy-package instead of building the package multiple times

I tried it, but it opens a browser to get an OAuth token.

$ git clone https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu-archive-tools
$ cd ubuntu-archive-tools/
$ ./copy-package --from ~bin-cli/ubuntu/bin-cli --from-suite focal --to-suite jammy bin-cli
The authorization page:
(https://launchpad.net/+authorize-token?oauth_token=XXX&allow_permission=DESKTOP_INTEGRATION)
should be opening in your browser. Use your browser to authorize
this program to access Launchpad on your behalf.
Waiting to hear from Launchpad about your decision...

Maybe there's a way to automate that, or get a long-lived token, but it looks complicated so I think I'll just stick with the original method of building the same package multiple times. (Plus it's more flexible that way, in case I ever need to adjust anything for specific versions of Ubuntu.)

[d13r]

Work out what is the best format for the PPA version numbers

While I would be happy to use just the upstream version number, (1) each Ubuntu series needs a different version number or Launchpad won't allow them to be uploaded with dput (and, as noted above, using copy-package is non-trivial), and (2) it is useful to be able to release a new package version without releasing a new version of Bin CLI itself.

Using something like 0.9.0-1 gives this fatal error:

This package has a Debian revision number but there does not seem to be
an appropriate original tar file or .orig directory in the parent directory;
(expected one of bin-cli_0.9.0.orig.tar.gz, bin-cli_0.9.0.orig.tar.bz2,
bin-cli_0.9.0.orig.tar.lzma,  bin-cli_0.9.0.orig.tar.xz or bin-cli.orig)
continue anyway? (y/n) Use of uninitialized value $ans in pattern match (m//) at /usr/bin/debuild line 1009.
Exited with code 1

Using anything with ubuntu in it gives a warning, but ultimately succeeds:

dpkg-source: warning: Version number suggests Ubuntu changes, but Maintainer: does not have Ubuntu address
dpkg-source: warning: Version number suggests Ubuntu changes, but there is no XSBC-Original-Maintainer field

This document suggests the format 1.0-2~ppa1~ubuntu17.04.1. That seems to give another error in addition to the above, but again it ultimately succeeds:

E: bin-cli source: malformed-debian-changelog-version 0.9.0-1~ppa1~ubuntu22.04 (for native)

That last error doesn't occur when simplifying the version to 0.9.0~ppa1~ubuntu22.04 or 0.9.0~ubuntu22.04~ppa1 or bin-cli - 0.9.0+ubuntu24.04+ppa1, etc. - only the "Ubuntu changes" one does.

Surveying the formats used by other PPAs:

Package	Example	Generic
PHP	8.3.7-1+ubuntu24.04.1+deb.sury.org+1	UPSTREAM-DEBREVISION+ubuntuUBUNTUVER+deb.sury.org+REVISION
DBeaver	24.0.4~ubuntu16.04 (for all series!)	UPSTREAM~ubuntu16.04
Firefox	126.0+build2-0ubuntu0.20.04.1~mt1	UPSTREAM+buildREVISION-0ubuntu0.UBUNTUVER~mtREVISION
VeraCrypt	1.26.7-0vanir1~bpo24.04	UPSTREAM-DEBREVISIONvanirREVISION~bpoUBUNTUVER
FEniCS	2:0.8.0.2~ppa1~noble1 (but we'll ignore the 2: epoch)	UPSTREAM~ppaREVISION~UBUNTUSERIESUBUNTUREVISION

In other words, no standard format - not even two packages among this random sample are using the same format!

No consensus on ~ vs + either. man deb-version says "a tilde sorts before anything". Testing with sort -V gives the following order:

0.9.0~ppa1
0.9.0
0.9.0+ppa1
0.9.0-1~ppa1
0.9.0-1
0.9.0-1+ppa1
0.9.1~ppa1
0.9.1
0.9.1+ppa1
0.9.1-1~ppa1
0.9.1-1
0.9.1-1+ppa1

Since an official Debian/Ubuntu package would have a Debian revision number suffix (-1, etc.), that would take precedence over both 0.9.0~ppa1 and 0.9.0+ppa1 formats. I don't see any reason to add -1 myself, since I'm not trying to replace any existing versions.

I am leaning towards + rather than ~, because the sorting seems more logical (I would expect a longer version number to be sorted after a shorter one).

So that leaves the question of 0.9.0+ppa1+ubuntu22.04 vs 0.9.0+ubuntu22.04+ppa1. The latter is what I am currently using, and allows for the possibility of updating the package for a single Ubuntu version without updating the others - e.g. I fixed a bug that only affected Focal in 0.9.0+ubuntu20.04+ppa2. That does leave the packages out of sync, so I will have to skip a version if I make further revisions that affect all series, but that's not a major problem. [Edit: Or I could use 0.9.0+ubuntu20.04+ppa1.1 format for fixes to a single series.]

So, after all that, I think I will stick with what I already have!

[d13r]

This change was spread across many commits: e84da88...1628115.