This guide tries to explain packaging from the point of view of a Java developer.

Note to Debian / Ubuntu wizard: please help me correct this guide in relation to Debian packaging guidelines.

Prerequisites

• Read the packaging guide or have at least a look to the packaging 101 session

• a Launchpad account

• Ubuntu with these packages installed: build-essential cdbs debhelper devscripts unzip bzr ant

  sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs debhelper devscripts unzip bzr ant

• configure your name and contact email address for Debian packaging: add to your .bashrc file:

  # Debian packaging
  export DEBEMAIL=john.doe@mail.com
  export DEBFULLNAME="John Doe"

• create a working directory
• cd into that directory

Packaging

Before you package a library or program

• check the extension license for main, universe suitability.

• check if the library or program was already packaged in Debian or Ubuntu (search http://packages.debian.org/ or search in Synaptic)

• if it was not created before, create a new project in Launchpad. If you are packaging a pure library (no main() method), call it lib<name>-java. If it's a program, use its lowercase name.

Packaging Procedure

Common steps

• create a project for your Debian package

  mkdir $PROJECT
  cd $PROJECT
  bzr init
  mkdir .bzr-builddeb/ 
  echo -e '[BUILDDEB]\nmerge = True' > .bzr-builddeb/default.conf 
  bzr add .bzr-builddeb/default.conf
  bzr add debian/
  bzr commit -m "* Initial setup"
  bzr push lp://~$LAUNCHPAD_ID/uj/$PROJECT 

• Use dch to inform of the changes in your package (not the code changes from upstream, only what has changed in the Debian packaging)