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Comment by kebolio | Hacker News Reader

HEADLINE: easier, simpler package creation and building

DESCRIPTION: on distros like arch, to a lesser extent void and even gentoo, writing package definition files (PKGBUILDs, ebuilds, templates) is relatively straightforward; in contrast, i don't even know where to start with finding, editing and building debian packages. i think they're built from source packages but beyond that i have no clue. i think visibility of documentation could help here, if not more radical changes to be more similar to the arch/gentoo workflow.

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Indeed. Typical scenario, I have software X that can follow such a process:

    tar xfvz foo
    cd foo
    ./configure --prefix aze
    make
    make install DEST_DIR=qsd

I want to package this to save build and deploy time as well as increase reliability. It should be downright trivial to:

    1. find the info explaining me how to do this
    2. understand it
    3. effectively do this

Debian fails even starting with step 1. Even if you manage to go through step 2 with some hair left, step 3 is insane compared to the mentioned alternatives.

This does not even involve step 4 (contributing the package back if it's not for internal use)

I'm totally with this. Simplified build process will help people adopting newer/custom packages into stable releases. Better if a package can be generated from single definition file. Even Redhat has a simpler build system that relies on package "spec" files. The current workflow resembles the one in Redhat, but is more verbose and, well, dirty.

And if you dig down deep you'll find that Debian packages most of the time don't even support the features the manpages claim (e.g. building with debug info or custom CFLAG's)

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