Debian Package Maintenance
I’ve been there before with Gentoo, as a developer, but times and situations have changed. Over the years I’ve been deeply involved with Ubuntu for my work and at its heart, Debian. I’ve become a Debian Developer to help get closer to the development process, package management and maintenance to do my share of the heavy lifting.
The first thing I did was sign up at Alioth, a software ‘forge’ used by Debian for collaboration. Create a ‘New Account’ and just be aware that whatever login name you use, it will be appended with ‘-guest’. This will go away once you’ve officially joined Debian. At this point, it is also a good idea join a Debian mailing list and/or join IRC at irc.debian.org and have a nice chat with the folks in #Debian or their various sub-channels where you would like to help. It is important to have a sponsor/mentor that can help you out if you a problem. You will need them when getting accepted into the Debian community in order to start working.
If you want to help but don’t know where to begin, have a look at the “Work-Needing and Prospective Packages” page. There are a few packages up for adoption, orphaned and others looking for someone to take over. Go to the appropriate group and ask about supporting your package of choice.
I am currently interested in introducing a new bit of software into Debian. If accepted, it will eventually show up in Ubuntu which is an added bonus. Once accepted on Alioth, upload your public key (SSH access) in your account page and you should now have ssh/git access to git.debian.org, which gets you on your way.
Once signed in, set your .gitconfig with your name and email address:
[user]
name = Bret Curtis
email = [email protected]
From there, we should create your new git repository:
cd /git/pkg-fonts/; ./setup-repository fonts-ebgaramond 'EB Garamond OpenType and TrueType fonts'
We can no do the rest on our local machine. We create our build environment and pull in our newly created git repo then push into that our first release.
sudo apt-get install debian-archive-keyring git-buildpackage
# on Ubuntu
git-pbuilder create --distribution sid --mirror http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ --debootstrapopts "--keyring=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg"
# on Debian
git-pbuilder create
Some extra commands that help to update the environment to the latest packages or add custom packages similar to having your own chroot envrionment.
git-pbuilder update
git-pbuilder login --save-after-login
From here on, we are pulling in our git repo, which should be empty. We do an git-import-orig with a release of the project. This isn’t the full repo history, just the release. We’ll be asked questions about the import to validate the version number. This will create master and upstream branches. Each new release goes into the upstream branch with a tag. In master we will keep our /debian directory which should contain our control files.
git clone git+ssh://[email protected]/git/pkg-fonts/fonts-ebgaramond.git fonts-ebgaramond
gbp import-orig --pristine-tar ../v0.015.tar.gz
git commit -a -m 'Setting up the first release.'
git push --all
Once you have a working /debian control files in place, let’s try to get it to build and produce Debian packages. We run litian afterwards to try to catch any errors in our control files.
export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS="parallel=8" # or how many cores you wish to use
gbp buildpackage --git-ignore-new --git-pbuilder
lintian --pedantic -I
From here on, talk to your mentor and when you think you are ready, it is then time to “Intent to Package” (ITP) and file a bug report. Make sure you can send email first with:
mail -s Testing_1 [email protected] < /dev/null
Should you get this back in your email, then are good to go! Use reportbug and follow through with the instructions with your ITP.
#On Ubuntu
reportbug --email [email protected] -B debian wnpp
#On Debian
reportbug --email [email protected] wnpp
This will get you on your way to maintaining your own package. This will file a bug and put it on the mailing list so that the appropriate people see this. Prepare for push-back and questions, this is normal. They will give advice to make sure your package is ready to be added to Debian. Good luck!
Update: 20141024 – When there is a new release, here are the additional steps. First clone the repo if you don’t already done so, then setup your branches.
git clone git+ssh://[email protected]/git/pkg-fonts/fonts-ebgaramond.git fonts-ebgaramond
fonts-ebgaramond
git branch -a
* master
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/debian
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/upstream
git checkout -t origin/debian
git checkout -t origin/upstream
git branch -a
debian
master
* upstream
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/debian
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/upstream
git checkout master
gbp import-orig --pristine-tar ../v0.015d.tar.gz
Here you follow prompts, then when finished, give it a spin with building. Be sure to update your changelog and any version related issues.
Update: 20151209 – Many of the commands have been replaced by gbp (git built packages). I’ve updated the above to reflect the new convention.
Update: 20210305 – Updated guide for changes away from ftp to http archive, updated packages needed to do typical Debian maintenance tasks.
