Debian Packaging

Debian folder

The "debian"-Folder should be in the root of the project. It contains all Metadata and scripts for creating the final package.

Required Files

These files are the bare minimum to create a Debian package

control

The "control" file contains metadata about the package like version and dependencies, mostly used by package managers like apt. Full specification at: https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html

Backports

Packages are typical first build for "sid" ("unstable") and after a few days also released for the current testing distribution (Currently code name "bookworm"). Older Stable distributions only get package updates for bug fixes. New features are only distributed with "backports". Backports are packages original build for a newer distribution, e.g. sid and are rebuilt for older distributions to provide new features.

Naming

The Version of a backported package should end with ~bpoDISTRO+BACKPORT_REVISION with "DISTRO" being replaces with the target distribution number, e.g. 10 for "buster" and "BACKPORT_REVISION" is the package revision number starting at 1.

dch --bpo will automatically create the correct changelog entry for the backport.

Distribution list with Examples

Codename	Number	Example
Bullseye	11	1.2.3-4~bpo11+1
Buster	10	1.2.3-4~bpo10+1
Jammy	22.04	1.2.3-4~bpo22.04+1
Focal	20.04	1.2.3-4~bpo20.04+1

Packages are only backported to the last 2 Distributions.