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

• 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 an upstream branch in the project on Launchpad. Be sure to check for a license file. In case there's none, contact upstream. For projects that distribute sources with a build-system/build-command this should be an import of the release you want to package. Replace the $NAMES with your own values of course!

  cd directory-with-upstream-sources
  bzr init
  bzr add .
  bzr commit -m "* import of upstream source (vVERSION.INFO)"
  bzr push bzr+ssh://$LAUNCHPAD_ID@bazaar.launchpad.net/~$LAUNCHPAD_ID/$PROJECT/$PROJECTNAME.upstream 

• create a packaging branch derived from the upstream branch you just imported

  bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~$LAUNCHPAD_ID/$PROJECT/$PROJECTNAME.upstream $PROJECTNAME.ubuntu