Debian packages mini howto

Sure there are many places you have good tutorial for debian packages

but here I am going to add short howto.

 

How to build a debian packages:

Just head on to pacakegs.debian.org where you find catalog of packages, choose

one you like

https://packages.debian.org/stable/

Lets say I want to build one of most popular packages "vlc" 

https://packages.debian.org/stable/vlc

You can see lots of information about the package and also soure package link 

on the right side of the page, now download file ending with ".dsc" 

The dsc file can fetch all required source and apply debian patches required

when run it with dget command. If dget is not available, please install them

by apt-get install devscripts

1. dget -x http://http.debian.net/debian/pool/main/v/vlc/vlc_2.2.4-1~deb8u1.dsc

Now you have all the sources and patches applied, head on building the packages with the command debuild

2. debuild -b -us -uc

The options are to instruct only to build binary packages without signing it.

3. Now you may be reported for some dependencies required to be installed on the running system, resolve them by installing it using apt-get install.

4. Once  the debuild completes you will get the packages .deb files in the source directory, we can go and install them using dpkg.

dpkg -i vlc*.deb

Hope I think I covered the major steps you need to start with. Isn't this simple?

One of the reason why debian has large community.