Chapter 8. More on packaging

All customization data for the Debian source package resides in the debian/ directory as presented in “Section 5.7, “Step 3: Modification to the template files””:

When these are not sufficient to make a good Debian package, -p1 patches of debian/patches/* files are deployed to modify the upstream source. These are applied in the sequence defined in the debian/patches/series file before building the package as presented in “Section 5.9, “Step 3 (alternatives): Modification to the upstream source””.

You should address the root cause of the Debian packaging problem by the least invasive way. The generated package shall be more robust for future upgrades in this way.

	Note
	Send the patch addressing the root cause to the upstream maintainer if it is useful to the upstream.

Flexible customization of the Section 6.5, “debian/rules file” is realized by adding appropriate override_dh_* targets and their rules.

Whenever some special operation is required for a certain dh_foo command invoked by the dh command, any automatic execution of it can be overridden by adding the makefile target override_dh_foo in the debian/rules file.

The build process may be customized via the upstream provided interface such as arguments to the standard source build system commands, such as:

If this is the case, you should add the override_dh_auto_build target with “dh_auto_build -- arguments”. This ensures passing arguments to the build system after the default parameters that dh_auto_build usually passes.

	Tip
	Please try not to execute the bare build system commands directly if they are supported by the dh_auto_build command.

See:

DEB_HOST_ARCH_OS ?= $(shell dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH_OS)
 ...
ifeq ($(DEB_HOST_ARCH_OS),linux)
CONFIGURE_FLAGS += --enable-wayland
endif

See “Section 9.10, “Multiarch””, dpkg-architecture(1) and dpkg-buildflags(1).

$ uscan
 ... foo-newversion.tar.gz downloaded
$ uupdate -v newversion ../foo-newversion.tar.gz

After the above, you should refresh debian/patches/* files (see “Section 8.5, “Manage patch queue with dquilt””) and update debian/changelog with the dch(1) command.

When “debian uupdate” is specified at the end of line in the debian/watch file, uscan automatically executes uupdate(1) after downloading the tarball.

 $ sudo sbuild -d unstable

In schroot(1) terminology, this builds a Debian package in a clean ephemeral chroot “chroot:unstable-amd64-sbuild” started as a copy of the clean minimal persistent chroot “source:unstable-amd64-sbuild”.

This build environment was set up as described in “Section 4.6, “sbuild setup”” with “sbuild-debian-developer-setup -s unstable” which essentially did the following:

 $ sudo mkdir -p /srv/chroot/dist-amd64-sbuild
 $ sudo sbuild-createchroot unstable /srv/chroot/unstable-amd64-sbuild http://deb.debian.org/debian
 $ sudo usermod -a -G sbuild <your_user_name>
 $ sudo newgrp -

The schroot(1) configuration for unstable-amd64-sbuild was generated at /etc/schroot/chroot.d/unstable-amd64-sbuild.$suffix :

[unstable-amd64-sbuild]
description=Debian sid/amd64 autobuilder
groups=root,sbuild
root-groups=root,sbuild
profile=sbuild
type=directory
directory=/srv/chroot/unstable-amd64-sbuild
union-type=overlay

Here:

You can update this source chroot “source:unstable-amd64-sbuild” by:

 $ sudo sbuild-update -udcar unstable

You can log into this source chroot “source:unstable-amd64-sbuild” by:

 $ sudo sbuild-shell unstable

	Tip
	If your source chroot filesystem is missing packages such as libeatmydata1, ccache, and lintian for your needs, you may want to install these by logging into it.

See dh_bugfiles(1) and “reportbug’s Features for Developers (README.developers)”

	Tip
	If you always remind the bug reporter of something or ask them about their situation, use these files to automate it.