meddle
March 3rd, 2010, 06:35 PM
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Alien.
One of the download options for dbvisualizer is a .rpm package ( http://www.dbvis.com/products/dbvis/download/ )
This package has no architecture and contains a java application.
When using alien to convert this .rpm to .deb like so ...
sudo alien --veryverbose -c -d dbvis_linux_7_0_4.rpm
it stops with the follwing error :
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: error: current host architecture 'amd64' does not appear in package's architecture list (i386)
dh_gencontrol: dpkg-gencontrol returned exit code 255
make: *** [binary-arch] Error 1
find dbvis-7.0.4 -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;
find: `dbvis-7.0.4': No such file or directory
rm -rf dbvis-7.0.4
So apparently the architecture of the package is set wrongly, or alien is not detecting it correctly, who cares? Well I do. So, let us stop the conversion half way with the -g option like so ( if you executed the previous command, please first remove the build directory via "sudo rm -fr dbvis-7.0.4" ):
sudo alien --veryverbose -c -d -g dbvis_linux_7_0_4.amd64.rpm
to quote from the alien man page :
-g, --generate
Generate a temporary directory suitable for building a package
from, but do not actually create the package. This is useful if you
want to move files around in the package before building it. The
package can be built from this temporary directory by running
"debian/rules binary", if you were creating a Debian package, or by
running "rpmbuild -bb <packagename>.spec" if you were creating a
Red Hat package.
So now we can make changes and the build the binary .deb by changing to the build directory that alien created, in this case dbvis-7.0.4, and executing the command :
sudo ./debian/rules binary
but not just yet. First we need to change the architecture to amd64. So change to the ./dbvis-7.0.4/debian/ directory and edit the control file, it should have contents similar to this (and is named control):
Source: dbvis
Section: alien
Priority: extra
Maintainer: blah von bliep <blah@bliep.com>
Package: dbvis
Architecture: i386
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Description:
DbVisualizer
.
(Converted from a rpm package by alien version 8.78.)
change the i386 item to amd64 and save, using your favorite editor.
now change one directory back like so :
cd ..
you should be in the build directory, in this case dbvis-7.0.4, and now to start the .deb build, run the rules file like so :
sudo ./debian/rules binary
Lots of magic behind the scenes code will run giving output similar to this :
dh_testdir
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_clean -k -d
dh_installdirs
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name debian -print0 | \
xargs -0 -r -i cp -a {} debian/dbvis
dh_compress
dh_makeshlibs
dh_installdeb
dh_shlibdeps
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: warning: unknown substitution variable ${shlibs:Depends}
dh_md5sums
dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: building package `dbvis' in `../dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb'.
and you will end with a dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb package.
Now use dpkg to install this package like so :
sudo dpkg --install dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb
and run dbvisualizer like so :
dbvis
I have sun-java packages installed, so I cannot comment on the default java install.
References:
[1] http://women.debian.org/wiki/English/BuildingWithoutHelper
[2] alien man page
One of the download options for dbvisualizer is a .rpm package ( http://www.dbvis.com/products/dbvis/download/ )
This package has no architecture and contains a java application.
When using alien to convert this .rpm to .deb like so ...
sudo alien --veryverbose -c -d dbvis_linux_7_0_4.rpm
it stops with the follwing error :
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: error: current host architecture 'amd64' does not appear in package's architecture list (i386)
dh_gencontrol: dpkg-gencontrol returned exit code 255
make: *** [binary-arch] Error 1
find dbvis-7.0.4 -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;
find: `dbvis-7.0.4': No such file or directory
rm -rf dbvis-7.0.4
So apparently the architecture of the package is set wrongly, or alien is not detecting it correctly, who cares? Well I do. So, let us stop the conversion half way with the -g option like so ( if you executed the previous command, please first remove the build directory via "sudo rm -fr dbvis-7.0.4" ):
sudo alien --veryverbose -c -d -g dbvis_linux_7_0_4.amd64.rpm
to quote from the alien man page :
-g, --generate
Generate a temporary directory suitable for building a package
from, but do not actually create the package. This is useful if you
want to move files around in the package before building it. The
package can be built from this temporary directory by running
"debian/rules binary", if you were creating a Debian package, or by
running "rpmbuild -bb <packagename>.spec" if you were creating a
Red Hat package.
So now we can make changes and the build the binary .deb by changing to the build directory that alien created, in this case dbvis-7.0.4, and executing the command :
sudo ./debian/rules binary
but not just yet. First we need to change the architecture to amd64. So change to the ./dbvis-7.0.4/debian/ directory and edit the control file, it should have contents similar to this (and is named control):
Source: dbvis
Section: alien
Priority: extra
Maintainer: blah von bliep <blah@bliep.com>
Package: dbvis
Architecture: i386
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Description:
DbVisualizer
.
(Converted from a rpm package by alien version 8.78.)
change the i386 item to amd64 and save, using your favorite editor.
now change one directory back like so :
cd ..
you should be in the build directory, in this case dbvis-7.0.4, and now to start the .deb build, run the rules file like so :
sudo ./debian/rules binary
Lots of magic behind the scenes code will run giving output similar to this :
dh_testdir
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_clean -k -d
dh_installdirs
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name debian -print0 | \
xargs -0 -r -i cp -a {} debian/dbvis
dh_compress
dh_makeshlibs
dh_installdeb
dh_shlibdeps
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: warning: unknown substitution variable ${shlibs:Depends}
dh_md5sums
dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: building package `dbvis' in `../dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb'.
and you will end with a dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb package.
Now use dpkg to install this package like so :
sudo dpkg --install dbvis_7.0.4-2_amd64.deb
and run dbvisualizer like so :
dbvis
I have sun-java packages installed, so I cannot comment on the default java install.
References:
[1] http://women.debian.org/wiki/English/BuildingWithoutHelper
[2] alien man page