Packaging Overview

Updated 2,597 Days AgoPublic

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Prerequisites

To build packages, install the devscripts package: sudo apt install devscripts, which contains a lot of useful helpers for building Debian packages.
Having gbp available is also a good idea: sudo apt install git-buildpackage

Building packages

All packages have to be built in a pristine PureOS landing chroot before being uploaded to PureOS. The preferred method to do that is by using pbuilder.
For packages not managed in Git, pbuilder can be invoked via

DIST=landing pdebuild --auto-debsign

For Git-managed packages, gbp provides options to build with pbuilder directly. Alternatively, pdebuild can be passed in like gbp buildpackage --git-builder='DIST=landing pdebuild --auto-debsign'

Version numbers

Packages which are available on Debian and are changed in PureOS have a pureosX version tag attached to the Debian revision, with X being the PureOS revision number. So, if the package's upstream version is 2.1, it's Debian revision is 2 (creating the Debian version string 2.1-2) and you make a change for PureOS, the resulting package version must be 2.1-2pureos1. The PureOS revsion is incremented with every change, so the next version would be 2.1-2pureos1.

If the package isn't in Debian, the Debian revision number is assumed to be zero and all other rules from above still apply. So, and upstream package with version 3.4 which is new in PureOS will get the initial version 3.4-0pureos1.

If you do not do any source changes but just rebuild a package, bX is appended to the revision. So, a package of version 1.0-3 gets the new version 1.0-3b1 if it is rebuilt. The rebuild version is incremented on every subsequent rebuild.

Paying attention to the version numbers is important, because the PureOS archive tools will use the version number to make decisions about the package's state, which includes overriding it with a version from Debian or even removing it.
Using the right version number will make the archive do the right thing.

Validating packages

Use lintian -IE --pedantic <changes-file> to check a package for compliance with the Debian policy. Ensure it is warning and error-free.
Currently, all warnings related to NMUs and invalid suites can be ignored, as those are different or don't exist in PureOS (Lintian does not know about the existence of PureOS yet).