Debian New Maintainers' Guide

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 1998-2001 Josip Rodin.

This document may used under the terms the GNU General Public License version 2 or higher.

This document was made using with these two documents as examples:

Making a Debian Package (AKA the Debmake Manual), copyright © 1997 Jaldhar Vyas jaldhar@debian.org.

The New-Maintainer's Debian Packaging Howto, copyright © 1997 Will Lowe lowe@debian.org.

Contents

• 1 Getting started "The Right Way"
  • 1.1 Programs you need for development
  • 1.2 Other information
• 2 First steps
  • 2.1 Choose your program.
  • 2.2 Get the program, and try it out.
  • 2.3 Stuff prior to `dh_make'
  • 2.4 Running `dh_make'
• 3 Modifying the source
  • 3.1 Installation in a subdirectory
  • 3.2 Differing libraries
• 4 Required stuff under debian/
  • 4.1 `control' file
  • 4.2 `copyright' file
  • 4.3 `changelog' file
  • 4.4 `rules' file
• 5 Other files under debian/
  • 5.1 README.Debian
  • 5.2 conffiles
  • 5.3 dirs
  • 5.4 manpage.1.ex
  • 5.5 menu.ex
  • 5.6 watch.ex
  • 5.7 ex.doc-base
  • 5.8 postinst.ex, preinst.ex, postrm.ex, prerm.ex
• 6 Final steps
  • 6.1 Building the package
  • 6.2 Checking the package for errors
  • 6.3 Uploading the package
  • 6.4 Updating the package
  • 6.5 Where to ask for help