Building a .deb for chruby

[tpitale]

I started working on building a .deb file for ubuntu/debian systems and wanted to continue the conversation here (rather than on twitter :-).

Here's what I did so far and it "works". https://gist.github.com/tpitale/5500002

This is not really repeatable for the project, and it sounds like @postmodern had some other changes he wanted me to make.

[tpitale]

Building a debian package is way more complex than it needs to be. Using dh_make results in lots of files that I are not really explained.

Anyway, I dumped the control file from the package that fpm made:

Package: chruby
Version: 0.3.4
License: unknown
Vendor: unknown
Architecture: all
Maintainer: Hal Brodigan <postmodern.mod3@gmail.com>
Installed-Size: 19
Section: default
Priority: extra
Homepage: https://github.com/postmodern/chruby
Description: Changes the current Ruby

[tpitale]

So, that control file works to make a .deb, which is good. But it seems like we need to make a directory to copy the files we actually want installed (and where). Should I do this in the Makefile?

I'm thinking something like this (which would need to be run in the vagrant debian or ubuntu boxes):

mkdir -p /tmp/chruby/usr
cp -r share /tmp/chruby/usr/
cp -r bin /tmp/chruby/usr/
cp -r DEBIAN /tmp/chruby/
cd /tmp/chruby
dpkg-deb -b . chruby_0.3.4.deb

[tpitale]

That "worked":

vagrant@precise64:/tmp/chruby$ sudo dpkg -i chruby_0.3.4.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package chruby.
(Reading database ... 78519 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking chruby (from chruby_0.3.4.deb) ...
Setting up chruby (0.3.4) ...
vagrant@precise64:/tmp/chruby$ ls -l /usr/share/chruby/
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 vagrant vagrant  910 May  2 14:52 auto.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 vagrant vagrant 2149 May  2 14:52 chruby.sh

[tpitale]

I looked again at the rpm .spec and it seems like it will download the chruby tar.gz source and run make install. I can't seem to find a way to do this with a debian package, thus the above approach.

[wilmoore]

BTW, have you tried?:

checkinstall --install=no

[tpitale]

That is a very handy alternative! The docs https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CheckInstall warn against distributing the packages that it makes. But for those that don't need a .deb, or if we're not distributing it, this is an alternative for sure.

[wilmoore]

@tpitale: ah, good catch.

[postmodern]

If I remember correctly, debian uses fakeroot and make installs into that.

[tpitale]

@postmodern This? http://wiki.debian.org/FakeRoot

[tpitale]

There doesn't seem to be a way to have a debian package download the tar.gz source, and run make install …

Everything I search for just turns up results for source packages, which seem to be something else.

[postmodern]

Downloading the Source appears to be an RPMism. I think PREFIX=/fakeroot/usr make install is acceptable.

[tpitale]

I'm a bit lost, I think. Should I be using PREFIX=/fakeroot/usr make install in building the package?

[tpitale]

To be clear, when the package is installed, it appears to simply copy the directory inside into place. At least this seems to be the case with "binary" packages. I am, however, new to this, and could be very wrong.

[envygeeks]

First, it's a no no to download from a website in a Debian package (referencing a comment that seemed to imply downloading on install.) There is only one package that does that (officially!?) and it has been questioned since the day it was introduced. Second, your package name should be "ruby-chruby" because that is the Debian naming policy for Ruby packages which this counts as (along just like RVM is named ruby-rvm).

Other notes:

• Unless @postmodern plans to maintain this package the maintainer needs to be set to you.
  • Use XSBC-Original-Maintainer if you want to add @postmodern as a maintainer.
• Please set a home page and mention the bug reporting URL
• The section should be ruby
• The depends should be the base dependencies for building, along with libxml2-dev and libxlt2-dev.

The maintainer concept is not for the source, it's for the package, so that people know who to contact if there is a problem with the package, it has nothing to do with who makes the application, that is what the home page and description are for.

[tmatilai]

Is the intention to try to get chruby included into Debian or just provide users a way to build a package? If the latter, why not just a simple script that uses fpm to create the deb? For local use there is not much sense to try to complete with all the Debian policy requirements, even though most of the metadata can be managed with fpm options.

This project is very simple to build and install, so even a normal Debian packaging setup should be easy to create. Take a look at existing source packages and for example Debian New Maintainers' Guide.