Building packages on a clean-room environmend

[mssever]

msserver, thanks for the explanation.

That's what I am trying to do, but I have not found a thorough guide on how to do this. I have found guides on creating .deb packages, but they specifically mention I need a config file. The problem is that ndiswrapper's source does not come with a config file (while most other applications do, since you do the ./configure step while compiling). I have found nothing to show me how to create a config file.

Debianizing source from scratch isn't a simple process. I tried doing that a while back and found it to be really frustrating due to the lack of documentation that I could understand.

What I do--and I don't know if it will suit your purpose, but I suspect it will--is put the following debian source lines in my sources.list

deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable non-free
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable contrib

Then I do

sudo apt-get update && apt-get source whatever

Now, you can modify the source however you want. When you're satisfied, you need to change the version number, or the package won't behave right. Add an entry to debian/changelog. This is where the version number is set. The file format is extremely strict about indentation, spacing, etc. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise, your version number should be tacked to the end of the existing version string as a modifier string and your revision number. For example, I add mssever1, mssever2, etc.

Next, cd to the root directory of the source tree and type

debuild -S

If it completes successfully, you'll have a new source package in the parent directory with the new version number. You can build it with pbuilder per the instructions in the original post.

[Technoviking]

It is taking forever for sudo pbuilder create to run. Is that normal?

Mike

[mlind]

It is taking forever for sudo pbuilder create to run. Is that normal?

Mike

If you're using default Ubuntu mirror (archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu), then try using an alternative mirror from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors. Downloading packages from main mirror is usually very slow if new Ubuntu has been recently released.

sudo pbuilder create --distribution feisty --mirror http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu

[12345]

1. question:

pdebuild can sign the package,
but what is with pbuilder, can it do the job too? and how?


2. question:

With sudo pbuilder build, i get a lot of errors like this. What does that mean?:

dpkg-genchanges: warning: no utmp entry available and LOGNAME not defined; using uid of process (1234)
dpkg-architecture: warning: no utmp entry available and LOGNAME not defined; using uid of process (1234)
dpkg-parsechangelog: warning: no utmp entry available and LOGNAME not defined; using uid of process (1234)

thanks

[mlind]

1. question:

pdebuild can sign the package,
but what is with pbuilder, can it do the job too? and how?

I'm using debsign to sign packages. see man debsign for the usage.
After binaries have been built, I just just pass .changes file to debsign

debsign mypackage*.changes

With sudo pbuilder build, i get a lot of errors like this. What does that mean?

Those are normal warnings, although look alarming. You can check pbuilder manual for the details.

[Carlos Santiago]

Hi.
I am interested in building a deb package with all the configuration files needed to connect to my ISP and using my modem.

I dont need to compile any software, just need to copy some files do a specific path, and append some text to a file that already exist in the system.

Also, as I need to use setserial, that package should be on the requisits.

After this being done and tested for my specific modem and to my ISP, I would like to make it work with other modems and other ISPs.

What is the simpler way to do this?

[LKRaider]

Any tips on how to upgrade an existing base.cow (or base.tgz) from one distribution version to another?
Should I just delete the old one and create a new?

What's the best option? Any other tips regarding this?

I'm currently creating a second base dir for feisty (/var/cache/pbuilder/base-feisty.cow), keeping the base.cow I used for dapper on another folder (/var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow), which I'll probably delete later.

[mlind]

Any tips on how to upgrade an existing base.cow (or base.tgz) from one distribution version to another?
Should I just delete the old one and create a new?

What's the best option? Any other tips regarding this?

I'm currently creating a second base dir for feisty (/var/cache/pbuilder/base-feisty.cow), keeping the base.cow I used for dapper on another folder (/var/cache/pbuilder/base.cow), which I'll probably delete later.

Well, I dunno about best practices, but I've always created new base.cow or .tgz for each distribution and maintained it using --update --autocleanaptcache flags. I guess you get the same result using the --override-config option as noted in pbuilder manual.

To upgrade base.cow from edgy to feisty

sudo cowbuilder --update --distribution feisty --override-config --autocleanaptcache

[tyraen]

For some reason "pbuilder create" kept failing while trying to download the release file. I did --debug and pasted the URL it spat out and it worked fine, and then I ran debootstrap with the params that --debug gave me and that worked fine too.

Anyways, now that I've got the debootstrap done, and since "pbuilder create" still isn't working, is there any way to point it to the directory of the debootstrap contents to have it just continue from that step? I checked out the parameters but none seem to do the trick (maybe it can't be done...).

Thanks!

[mlind]

For some reason "pbuilder create" kept failing while trying to download the release file. I did --debug and pasted the URL it spat out and it worked fine, and then I ran debootstrap with the params that --debug gave me and that worked fine too.

Anyways, now that I've got the debootstrap done, and since "pbuilder create" still isn't working, is there any way to point it to the directory of the debootstrap contents to have it just continue from that step? I checked out the parameters but none seem to do the trick (maybe it can't be done...).

Thanks!

Do you still have the problem? You can use pbuilder option --debootstrapopts to pass options for debootstrap when invoking pbuilder create. see pbuilder manual and debootstrap manual for details (man pbuilder and man deboostrap).

For example

pbuilder create --debootstrapopts --arch=amd64 --debootstrapopts --keep-debootstrap-dir