Translation(s): English - Português (Brasil)
Contents
You MUST have a Debian unstable environment (physical/dual boot, virtual machine, container or a chroot with schroot) to create packages suitable for uploading to Debian. See instructions given below to setup Debian Sid. You can use lxc, incus, docker or a virtual machine for development.
Note: The target audience is people just discovering Debian.
Readers note: This page lists 8 different approaches. It doesn't list 8 steps of one approach. You can choose any one approach at a time and follow the instructions under it. For example, if you want to use docker, there is no need to run the commands listed under Schroot/Incus/LXC/Virtual Machine.
If you want to use osx on x86_64 platform for packaging, refer to docker or virtual machines sections and for arm64 platform use UTM
If you don't know about these options, Incus is the recommended option.
Option 1: Incus
Incus is a fork of LXC/LXD by the original LXD developers. It can create a container or a virtual machine.
If you already setup a sid development environment using one of the methods given above, you can skip this step.
Using Incus for creating a sid development environment.
Option 2: Systemd Nspawn and Debspawn
If your host system already has systemd as init system, this would be the best option for you.
Using Systemd Nspawn for creating a sid development environment.
Using debspawn for clean build. sbuild can be used as an alternative to debspawn.
Option 3: Schroot and Sbuild
If you already have a Debian stable or Debian-based distribution (Arch also has schroot package, though if you have a different distro, you need to check if it has schroot package), this option is best for you.
Using schroot for creating a sid development environment.
Option 4: LXC
If you have trouble setting it up, skip this section and see docker section below.
If you already setup a sid development environment using one of the methods given above, you can skip this step.
Using LXC for creating a sid development environment.
Option 5: Docker
If you already setup a sid development environment using one of the methods given above, you can skip this step.
Using Docker for creating a sid development environment.
Option 6: Virtual Machine
If you already set up a sid development environment using one of the methods given above, you can skip this step.
Using Virtual Box or Vagrant to create a sid development environment.
Option 7: Direct/Bare metal install
You can also install Debian unstable in your machine under dual boot configuration or even replacing existing OS. See DebianUnstable
Option 8: Window Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2)
If you already set up a sid development environment using one of the methods given above, you can skip this step.
Debian unstable can also be installed in your local Windows OS machine using WSL2 (install info).
Note that this requires you be running Windows 10 version 2004 and higher (Build 19041 and higher) or Windows 11. See installing WSL2.
The installed WSL2 doesn't come with an "out of the box" setup for schroot. You will need to setup schroot (from Option 3) after installing a Debian distro on WSL2.