Build a basic .deb file

[jwrober]

No description provided.

[lmoureaux]

I installed the resulting package and started the client from the menu. It started an old client installed in my home directory. The .desktop points to:

Exec=/home/louis/freeciv/freeciv21/build/install/bin/freeciv21-client
Icon=/home/louis/freeciv/freeciv21/build/install/share/freeciv21/misc/civicon.png

However, the .deb installs in /usr. There are more inconsistencies: for instance, translations are loaded from my home folder, which also appears in the data path.

Is this an issue on my end or a package issue?

[lmoureaux]

Also, the installed size is above 400MB for my, is it because it's a debug build?

[jwrober]

That is strange. Let me look more closely at the output. It should not be that big. It is a Release build and the .desktop files included point to /usr... I tested on a blank VM with a fresh OS build.

[jwrober]

I wonder if .desktop files in home directory take precedence over the ones in /usr? The deb file is created with a simple build cmake . -B build -G Ninja and then cmake --build build --target package. In my local build directory, the meta and desktop files going to /usr/local and so does the package then uncompress ~80MB of data to /usr/local/.

[jwrober]

I see what the issue is. The executable files are being placed in /usr/bin, but the desktop files are pointing to /usr/local/bin.

[jwrober]

I found the fix - configure with this cmake . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr and then do the package with cmake --build build --target package. This will send the correct command to configure_file() and setup the package to install all components to correct spot on the file system and also configure the .desktop files to point to where the binaries are actually installed. I think there is an upstream defect here, but can't exactly pin it down. On my test system the game shows up in the games menu after install immediately.

[lmoureaux]

OK we can do this in CI. Does the documentation need an update?

[jwrober]

OK we can do this in CI. Does the documentation need an update?

Yes, good point. I'll push a doc update to capture the steps that we can then add to CI in another PR after this one.