This project is in a very early stage. Any contributions are welcome. First of all, a index of sections, chapters and paragraphs has to be created. Feel free to add topics you consider somewhat useful. ?TableOfContents INDEX

Introduction

What is a debian package?

How to choose what to package

What to do when being about to package something

Sending an ITP bug

Kind of packages

native

non-native

Creating packages

Pre-requirements

Getting the source

from a tarball

from a revision control system

Packaging tools

dh-make

debhelper

CDBS

Benefits

Drawbacks

yada

dpatch

dbs

quilt

debscripts (what?)

debnest

Initial "debianization"

Naming

Initial version number

Editing debian/ files

required files

debian/copyright

debian/changelog

debian/control

debian/rules

other files

debian/compat

debian/docs

debian/dirs

debian/menu

debian/watch

Editing other files

Packaging

Splitting your application into multiple binary packages

Packaging according to the build system

Simple top level Makefile

autotools

Python distutils

... other tips

Building packages

Pre-requirements

Building tools

debuild

pbuilder and cowbuilder

debaux-build

sbuild

Checking packages

lintian and linda

piuparts

autopkgtests

edos-debcheck

yaclc

Uploading packages

Sponsorhips

Signing packages

debsigs

Uploading tools

dtools

dput and dcut

debaux-publish

dupload

Maintaining an archive

Updating packages

Update a repository

mini-dinstall

Using version control to manage packaging

Bazaar

Darcs

Git

Mercurial

Subversion

Appendix: Examples

Appendix: Editors with useful features

vi/vim

GNU Emacs

Appendix: Debian Policies

Some (useful) stuff about packaging: