[maemo-developers] I still have problems creating .deb packages :(

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Friday 23 November 2007 12:45:08 Andrea Grandi wrote:

> I've read, and read, and read again the documentation:
> http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/documentation/pymaemo_tutorial/python_maemo
>_howto.html#link22
>
> but the problem is always the same: generated .deb file doesn't
> contain the binaries :(

I am by no means an expert on Debian packaging but I do produce about 30 
packages for four different Maemo versions so I have fought against some of 
these issues myself and I feel your pain!  You may be pleased to know that I 
also often find that I think I have done everything right and the logs all 
look fine but it turns out the package doesn't contain the files I expected!

I strongly recommend reading the Debian New Maintainers Guide 
(http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/) and the man pages for the debhelper 
commands which do the work (such as dh_install).

> Once again, I post you debian/rules: http://pastebin.ca/794774
> and debian/control: http://pastebin.ca/794777

In your particular case I am confused about how you are trying to get the 
files into the package directories.  You do not call either dh_movefiles or 
dh_install in the binary-arch target of your debian/rules (actually 
dh_install is there but commented out).

I suggest you uncomment dh_install and add some debian/packagename.install 
files to control which files are installed into which of the two packages.  
Use the manpage for dh_install.

And while you are editing the rules file you may as well comment out the 
dh_installdocs and dh_installman as the tablet will delete any man pages or 
documentationyou try to install and you may as well save the user downloading 
them.

As an example of a simple library, here is what is in the .install files for 
libsoundgen...

debian/libsoundgen0.install:
usr/lib/lib*.so.*

debian/libsoundgen-dev.install:
usr/include/*
usr/lib/lib*.a
usr/lib/lib*.so
usr/lib/pkgconfig/*
usr/lib/*.la

Of course, you are creating python libraries so the files you install will be 
different.  You may also need to use dh_pysupport and/or dh_pycentral -- I 
don't know anything about python!

Graham