This is my first draft of a quick document saying how to convert an
old to a new source package.
DO NOT DO ANYTHING YET except read this and suggest amendments.
Ian.
* Download the original source code from wherever it can be found and
do any rearrangement required to make it look like the original tree
of the Debian source. Put it in <package>-<upstream-version>.orig/.
* Rename all files debian.* to debian/*. There may be some exceptions
to this, but this is a good start.
* Edit the debian/changelog - create or rename it if necessary. Add a
new revision to the top with the appropriate details.
* Edit/create debian/control:
+ Remove the Version field. If it is generated unusually (not equal
to the source version) you must use the -v option to
dpkg-gencontrol (see below). Section, Priority, Maintainer go
above the line, most of the rest below.
+ Reorder the fields and add a blank line at an appropriate point,
separating the source package fields from the binary package
fields.
+ Add the Source field.
+ Add the Standards-Version field.
+ Change the Architecture field for each package to `any', `all' or
whatever. If there isn't an Architecture field add one.
+ If any other seddery or things used to happen to make the binary
control files use dpkg-gencontrol's variable substitution features
to achieve the same effect. Use debian/substvars if you need to
put unusally-generated information (apart from details of .deb
files) in the .changes file too.
* Edit the debian/rules:
+ Remove the source and diff and any changes and dist targets. These
things now happen in a package-independent way and are not done by
debian/rules.
+ Change the binary target to use dpkg-gencontrol to make the package
control file(s).
+ Change occurrences of debian-tmp to debian/tmp.
+ Change occurrences of debian.{post,pre}{inst,rm} to debian/*.
+ Remove the version number make variable if there is one.
* Check that the debian/README is really the copyright file, and if so
rename it to debian/copyright and edit debian/rules accordingly. If
it isn't then find debian/copyright and decide what to do with the
README.
* Check for various other anachronisms:
+ Remove any Package_Revision, Package-Revision or Revision fields.
+ Rename Optional to Suggests, Recommended to Recommends.
+ Change /usr/doc/examples/<package> to /usr/doc/<package>/examples
and /usr/doc/copyright/<package> to /usr/doc/<package>/copyright.
* Look everything over.
* Do a test build using dpkg-buildpackage -ur -uc -r<whatever>. Check
the permissions and locations of the results, and that the source
build happened OK. Test install the binary package(s) and test
extract the source package(s).
* Sign the release: either re-run dpkg-buildpackage (this will rebuild
the package entirely), or PGP-sign the .dsc, rebuild the .changes
using dpkg-genchanges, and then PGP-sign the .changes.
--
Ian Jackson, at home. [EMAIL PROTECTED] + 44 1223 3 31579
General: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Permanent: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Churchill College, Cambridge, CB3 0DS. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/iwj10/
