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Making A DEB From A Source Package

Its nice to apt-get everything but some things arent available via repo servers. As such sometimes you need to install from source. It is nice to have the option to make a DEB file from the source package and thus be able to quickly install the same package onto other various systems of the same type, as well as install the package again at a later date without having to compile again

Building a deb from source is fairly simple


First we install checkinstall. This looks at the final install from source step, see's the system changes, and builds a deb from that result.



Now the *fun* part. Download extract and enter the software folder as normal. This time we run the following.



This will build make and install the software as per normal but will make a deb file as well. Typically I choose the defaults and the final screen will give you the following:


This package will be built according to these values:


0 - Maintainer: [ vo1pwf@gmail.com ]
1 - Summary: [ flrig1.3-27 ]
2 - Name: [ flrig ]
3 - Version: [ 1.3.27 ]
4 - Release: [ 1 ]
5 - License: [ GPL ]
6 - Group: [ checkinstall ]
7 - Architecture: [ amd64 ]
8 - Source location: [ flrig-1.3.27 ]
9 - Alternate source location: [ ]
10 - Requires: [ ]
11 - Provides: [ flrig ]
12 - Conflicts: [ ]
13 - Replaces: [ ]


The above is a sample of when I built the flrig software, change and edit the menu entries as needed. In the end you will have the source built and installed but you will also have a DEB file built. With that DEB file you can easily reinstall the software and install it on other systems of the same base distro (do it on a linux mint 17 machine and install using the deb file on another linuxmint 17 system)


Extra Notes:
- If you want to build a DEB but not install it use the "--install=no" flag
- If you need to supply dependencies use menu 10 and be sure to seperate any package names with a ","