Making packages

[Ben Pfaff]

michael@dynamine.net (Michael S. Fischer) writes:

> I'm now working for a hardware startup in Fremont in "stealth mode",
> whose software is placed atop a Red Hat distribution, after being
> packaged in a custom format (which handles dependencies and multi-node
> installations).

I don't even know what a "multi-node installation" is.

> Presently our custom software packaging system is similar to .deb's
> (metadata, files, pre/post-install scripts) but the packages are built
> by simply collecting a bunch of files that have been generated in various
> places throughout the source tree.  The traditional method of building
> Debian packages doesn't seem to fit the same paradigm.

Not sure exactly what you mean.  Can't you collect these files
into proper subdirectories?  .deb's are basically tarballs in an
ar archive with a fancy header.  There's no magic in building
them.  All the magic is in dpkg, not in the building process.

A more elaborate description of what you're trying to do would be
helpful.

Maybe you just want to create a utility that takes one of your
custom packages and generates .deb?  No sense in working harder
than necessary.

> I'd like to solicit suggestions as to manual pages, documents, examples,
> etc. I should read so that I can understand how to build Debian packages
> in a similar fashion.  Any help would be most appreciated.

Well, there's the Debian policy manual, and then there's several
thousand existing Debian packages as examples.  There's a manual
for newbie developers in the "Developer's Corner" on the Debian
website too, I think.  What else might be helpful?