Creating packages for other distributions
Arch is the best. But you may still want to package for other distributions.
General
- Virtualization is an obvious way, but requires maintaining additional system(s).
- Use distribution-specific packaging tools. Examples: dh-makeAUR, dpkg (Debian), rpm-tools (Fedora). Shortcuts such as dpkg-deb may be suited for less complex tasks.
- Chroot or systemd-nspawn to create a base system inside (yet separate from) Arch. Examples: debootstrap (Debian), dnf (Fedora). This has the added benefit of building in a minimal, clean environment.
- Use chroot with packaging tools in an an automated fashion. Examples: pbuilder-ubuntuAUR (Debian).
- A different way to handle (possibly incompatible) dependencies is static linking. Please note that most distributions frown on this practice.
- Common practice applies regardless of distribution used. For example, do not build packages as root.
Debian
The Debian Packaging Tutorial explains the groundwork. It describes use of the following tools:
- cowdancer — Copy-on-write wrapper for pbuilder
- dh-make — Tool that converts source archives into Debian package source
- quilt — Manage a series of patches by keeping track of the changes each patch makes
Override dependency handling
dpkg does not recognize dependencies installed by pacman. This means will generally fail with errors such as:
dpkg-checkbuilddeps: Unmet build dependencies: build-essential:native debhelper (>= 8.0.0) dpkg-buildpackage: warning: build dependencies/conflicts unsatisfied; aborting
To override this, use the -d flag:
$ dpkg-buildpackage -d -us -uc
You may also need to override by adding the following lines to :
override_dh_shlibdeps: dh_shlibdeps --dpkg-shlibdeps-params=--ignore-missing-info
debian/control, where ${shlibs:Depends} now has no meaning.Set up a chroot
See the Pbuilder How-To for an introduction to pbuilder-ubuntu. Using cowdancer in addition is recommended as copy-on-write offers a significant performance benefit.
- , and are required.
- eatmydata is available as and . To prevent
LD_PRELOADerrors, it must be installed both inside and outside the chroot. As the paths are different in Arch and Debian, create the following symbolic links:
# ln -s /usr/lib/libeatmydata.so.1.1.1 /usr/lib/libeatmydata/libeatmydata.so # ln -s /usr/lib/libeatmydata.so.1.1.1 /usr/lib/libeatmydata/libeatmydata.so.1
- Sample pbuilderrc
- To create a source package for pbuilder to handle:
$ dpkg-buildpackage -d -us -uc -S
See also about Debian
Fedora
Fedora:How to create an RPM package
- mock — Takes Source RPMs and builds RPMs from them in a chroot
See also about Fedora
openSUSE
The Open Build Service (OBS) is a generic system to build and distribute packages from sources in an automatic, consistent and reproducible way. It supports at least .deb, .rpm and Arch packages.
Creating a package
- Create an account in
- Install the package. Upstream documentation is available here.
- Create an example project.
- Create an example subproject (optional, but recommended).
- Create a new example package with . Save the created XML then exit.
- Switch to a clean working directory then checkout the project you have just created: .
- Now cd into it: .
Managing a package
Now it is time to decide how we will manage our project. There are two practical ways to do this:
- Maintain a PKGBUILD plus its helper files (such as *.install scripts) in a version control system (such as git, hg) then just make OBS track it;
- Maintain a package entirely in OBS itself.
The first version is more flexible and dynamic. To proceed:
- From your project directory, create a
_servicefile with the following contents:
<services>
<service name="tar_scm">
<param name="scm">git</param>
<param name="url">git://<your_repo_here></param>
<param name="versionformat">git%cd~%h</param>
<param name="versionprefix"><your_version_here></param>
<param name="filename"><name_of_your_package></param>
</service>
<service name="recompress">
<param name="file">*.tar</param>
<param name="compression">xz</param>
</service>
<service name="set_version"/>
</services>
Here is an example for :
<services>
<service name="tar_scm">
<param name="scm">git</param>
<param name="url">git://git.gnome.org/gimp.git</param>
<param name="versionformat">git%cd~%h</param>
<param name="versionprefix">2.9.1</param>
<param name="filename">gimp-git</param>
</service>
<service name="recompress">
<param name="file">*.tar</param>
<param name="compression">xz</param>
</service>
<service name="set_version"/>
</services>
- Make OBS track it:
- If you have any other files to include into the repo, just proceed as before: add the files in the project directory, then make OBS track them (OBS uses subversion as its underlying SCM, so this process might already be familiar for you)
- Check-in (=upload) your files into the repo .
Now, after a while, OBS will begin building your package.
Tips and tricks about openSUSE
- To see the build progress of your package, cd into its working directory, then: .
- There are three repositories, Arch:Core, Arch:Extra and Arch:Community. [community] can be appended as a "repository path" after adding the main Arch repository to the project.
ca-certificates-utils package problem
If OBS build fails because of the ca-certificates-utils package, you can add this line to your project config (from your project page, go to Advanced -> Project Config).
Prefer: ca-certificates-utils ca-certificates
See also about openSUSE
Multi-distribution
Pacur
Some tools such as Pacur allow building packages for multiple Linux distributions with a consistent package specification format. The package format is very similar to PKGBUILD so it is easy to re-use an existing PKGBUILD and add a few distribution-specific variables to be able to build debian and rpm packages effortlessly. By quickly adapting a PKGBUILD one is able to build package for Amazon Linux, Centos, Debian, Oracle Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu.