Kapitel 1. Vorwort

# Kapitel 1. Vorwort

Falls Sie ein etwas erfahrener Debian-Benutzer [1] sind, könnten Ihnen die folgende Situationen bekannt vorkommen:

- Sie möchten ein bestimmtes, noch nicht im Debian-Archiv verfügbares Softwarepaket installieren.
- Sie möchten ein Debian-Paket mit einer neueren Version der Originalautoren aktualisieren.
- Sie möchten Fehler in einem Debian-Paket mit Patches korrigieren.

If you want to create a Debian package to fulfill these needs and share your work with the community, you are the target audience of this guide as a prospective Debian maintainer. [2] Welcome to the Debian community.

Debian has many social and technical rules and conventions to follow, as it is a large volunteer organization with a rich history. Debian has also developed an extensive array of packaging and archive maintenance tools to build consistent sets of binary packages that address many technical objectives:

- packages have clearly specified package dependencies and patches and build correctly from scratch in a clean build environment („Abschnitt 6.6, „debian/control file““, „Abschnitt 6.9, „debian/patches/* files““, „Abschnitt 4.7, „sbuild setup““)
- Paketbau unter vielen Architekturen („Abschnitt 9.3, „Variables for debian/rules““)
- builds are reproducible („Abschnitt 10.7, „Reproduzierbares Bauen““)
- multiarch is supported („Abschnitt 10.10, „Multiarch““)
- bootstrapping new architectures is possible („Abschnitt 10.5, „Bootstrapping““)
- builds use specific compiler flags to harden security („Abschnitt 10.6, „Compiler hardening““)
- packages are split optimally into multiple binary packages („Abschnitt 10.11, „Aufteilung eines Debian-Binärpakets““)
- library names and contents are managed to ensure smooth transitions on upgrades („Abschnitt 10.18, „Bibliotheksübergänge““)
- installations use interactive prompts correctly (if at all) („Abschnitt 10.22, „debconf““)
- continuous integration is used to ensure quality („Abschnitt 10.4, „Continuous integration““)
- …​

These factors can be overwhelming for many new prospective Debian maintainers. This guide aims to provide entry points to help them get started. It covers the following:

- Was Sie wissen sollten, bevor Sie als angehender Betreuer bei Debian mitmachen.
- Wie es ausschaut, ein einfaches Debian-Paket zu erstellen.
- Welche Art von Regeln für das Erstellen des Debian-Pakets existieren.
- Tips for making the Debian package with minimal effort.
- Examples of making Debian packages in typical scenarios.

The author recognized the limitations of updating the original „New Maintainers' Guide“ with the dh-make package and decided to create an alternative tool with accompanying documentation to address modern requirements such as multi-arch. This resulted in the debmake package, initially released as version 4.0 in 2013. The current debmake version is 5.1.4. It comes with this updated „Guide for Debian Maintainers“ in the debmake-doc package (version: 1.28-1). (In 2016, dh-make was ported from Perl to Python with updated features.)

Many chores and tips have been integrated into the debmake command allowing this guide to be terse. This guide also offers many packaging examples for you to get started.

| Achtung
Es bedarf vieler Stunden, um Debian-Pakete zu erstellen und zu betreuen. Der Debian-Betreuer muss sowohl technisch kompentent als auch sorgfältig sein, um diese Herausforderung zu meistern.

Some important topics are explained in detail. While some may seem irrelevant to you, please be patient. Certain corner cases are omitted, and some topics are only covered through external references. These are intentional choices to keep this guide simple and maintainable.

[1] You need to know a little about Unix programming, but you don’t need to be an expert. You can learn about basic Debian system handling from the „Debian Reference“. It also contains pointers for learning about Unix programming.

[2] If you’re not interested in sharing the Debian package, you can address your local needs by compiling and installing the fixed upstream source package into /usr/local/.

Leitfaden für Debian-Betreuer |  | Kapitel 2. Überblick