Debian package for the software-center

[melfnt]

Hi all, I'm Italian and I don't speak English very well.
I have a Debian package build on launchpad, in the "quantal" series.
The Makefile installs its file in /usr/share and other folder.

Now, I want to submit it for the software-center, so I have to make a program that installs itself in /opt/extras.ubuntu.com/.... directory.
I cannot create a new version of the package, because it will override the older in launchpad.

-Can I submit the current package, even if it doesn't put the file in the "right" directory?
-Should I make another package, with different name?
-Or should I publish this one in any another series?

Thank you for the reply

[melfnt]

No answer?
Did someone ever submit an app for the software-center?

[Malsasa]

Hello, I am Indonesian. I don't understand too much but if you wanna your app available in the USC, you can follow this page:

http://developer.ubuntu.com/publish/

Hope this will be useful.

[melfnt]

Hi malsasa.

I had already read in that page:

Advanced users

If you are already familiar with Debian packaging and would like to submit your existing Debian source package for review, we will be happy to accept it. Please create a tarball of the source package, both 32 and 64 bit if you have it, and upload.

But I also read:

echnical requirements

In order for your application to be distributed in the Software Centre it must:

• Be in one, self-contained directory when installed
• Be able to be installed into the /opt/<package-name> directory (*)
• Be executable by all users from the /opt/<package-name> directory (**)
• Write all configuration settings to ~/.config/<package-name> (This can be one file or a directory containing multiple configuration files)

So, should I make my program install in /opt, shouldn't I?
I tried to install an application from the software-center: it DOESN'T install itself in /opt.

For example geany:

lucio@computerLucio:~$ locate geany
/home/lucio/.cache/software-center/icons/chart-geany-full-1-icon-logo64_1.png
/home/lucio/.cache/software-center/icons/chart-geany-trial-1-icon-logo64_2.png
/home/lucio/.config/geany
/home/lucio/.config/geany/colorschemes
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs
/home/lucio/.config/geany/geany.conf
/home/lucio/.config/geany/tags
/home/lucio/.config/geany/templates
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs/filetypes.README
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs/filetypes.c
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs/filetypes.cpp
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs/filetypes.html
/home/lucio/.config/geany/filedefs/filetypes.php
/home/lucio/.config/geany/templates/files
/home/lucio/.config/geany/templates/templates.README
/usr/bin/geany
/usr/include/geany
/usr/include/geany/document.h
/usr/include/geany/editor.h
/usr/include/geany/encodings.h
/usr/include/geany/filetypes.h
/usr/include/geany/geany.h
/usr/include/geany/geanyfunctions.h
/usr/include/geany/geanyplugin.h
/usr/include/geany/highlighting.h
/usr/include/geany/keybindings.h
/usr/include/geany/msgwindow.h
/usr/include/geany/plugindata.h
/usr/include/geany/prefs.h
/usr/include/geany/project.h
/usr/include/geany/scintilla
/usr/include/geany/search.h
/usr/include/geany/stash.h
/usr/include/geany/support.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager
/usr/include/geany/templates.h
/usr/include/geany/toolbar.h
/usr/include/geany/ui_utils.h
/usr/include/geany/utils.h
/usr/include/geany/scintilla/SciLexer.h
/usr/include/geany/scintilla/Scintilla.h
/usr/include/geany/scintilla/Scintilla.iface
/usr/include/geany/scintilla/ScintillaWidget.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_file_entry.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_project.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_source_file.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_symbol.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_tag.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_tagmanager.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_work_object.h
/usr/include/geany/tagmanager/tm_workspace.h
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/classbuilder.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/export.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/filebrowser.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/htmlchars.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/saveactions.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/geany/splitwindow.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig/geany.pc
/usr/share/geany
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/geany:geany.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/icons/geany.png
/usr/share/applications/geany.desktop
/usr/share/doc/geany
/usr/share/doc/geany-common
/usr/share/doc/geany/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany/NEWS.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany/README
/usr/share/doc/geany/THANKS.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany/TODO
/usr/share/doc/geany/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany/copyright
/usr/share/doc/geany/html
/usr/share/doc/geany/manual.txt.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/index.html
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/build_menu_commands_dialog.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/find_dialog.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/find_in_files_dialog.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/main_window.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_edit_completions.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_edit_display.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_edit_features.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_edit_indentation.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_files.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_gen_misc.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_gen_startup.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_interface_interface.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_interface_notebook.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_interface_toolbar.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_keys.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_printing.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_templ.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_tools.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_various.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/pref_dialog_vte.png
/usr/share/doc/geany/html/images/replace_dialog.png
/usr/share/doc/geany-common/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany-common/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/geany-common/copyright
/usr/share/doc-base/geany
/usr/share/geany/c99.tags
/usr/share/geany/colorschemes
/usr/share/geany/filetype_extensions.conf
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.Cython.conf
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.Genie.conf
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.Scala.conf
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.abc
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.actionscript
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.ada
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.asm
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.c
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.caml
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.cmake
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.cobol
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.common
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.conf
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.cpp
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.cs
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.css
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.d
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.diff
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.docbook
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.erlang
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.f77
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.ferite
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.forth
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.fortran
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.freebasic
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.glsl
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.haskell
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.haxe
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.html
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.java
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.javascript
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.latex
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.lisp
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.lua
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.makefile
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.markdown
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.matlab
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.nsis
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.pascal
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.perl
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.php
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.po
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.python
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.r
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.restructuredtext
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.ruby
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.sh
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.sql
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.tcl
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.txt2tags
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.vala
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.verilog
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.vhdl
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.xml
/usr/share/geany/filetypes.yaml
/usr/share/geany/html_entities.tags
/usr/share/geany/pascal.tags
/usr/share/geany/php.tags
/usr/share/geany/python.tags
/usr/share/geany/snippets.conf
/usr/share/geany/templates
/usr/share/geany/ui_toolbar.xml
/usr/share/geany/colorschemes/alt.conf
/usr/share/geany/templates/bsd
/usr/share/geany/templates/changelog
/usr/share/geany/templates/fileheader
/usr/share/geany/templates/files
/usr/share/geany/templates/function
/usr/share/geany/templates/gpl
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/file.html
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/file.php
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/file.rb
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/file.tex
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.c
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.cxx
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.d
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.java
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.py
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/main.vala
/usr/share/geany/templates/files/program.pas
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/geany.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/geany.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/geany.svg
/usr/share/locale/ast/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/be/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/ca/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/cs/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/el/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/en_GB/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/fa/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/fi/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/gl/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/hu/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/ja/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/kk/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/ko/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/lb/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/nl/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/pl/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/ro/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/sl/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/sv/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/tr/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/uk/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/vi/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/geany.mo
/usr/share/man/man1/geany.1.gz
/usr/share/menu/geany
/usr/share/pixmaps/geany.xpm
/var/lib/doc-base/documents/geany
/var/lib/doc-base/omf/geany
/var/lib/doc-base/omf/geany/geany-C.omf
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany-common.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany-common.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/geany.postrm

/usr, /var, bot *NO* /opt
Can someone tell me why?

[schragge]

Because geany is part of the standard distribution. The /opt part is for independent developers that want their apps to be distributed in Ubuntu's extras repository.

[melfnt]

Ok, that explained me a lot of things.

So, I must makes my program install itself in /opt
Or can I simply submit the current package as it is (and make it became part of the standard distribution, if it is possible...) ?

Thank you for the reply

[melfnt]

Solved:
I should use 2 different PPAs: one for the "extras" program (that installs itself in /opt) and the other for the "normal" version (that uses /usr/share).

Thank you a lot for helping me.