Repackaging binaries¶

Sometimes it is not allowable to publish the source code for vendor code packages. In this case, Debian packages can be built in a private PPA. The artifacts can be repackaged without source and published in a public PPA afterwards.

The following steps are needed.

Download Debian packages¶

In a browser, navigate to the private PPA containing the Debian packages.
Download all architecture independent \*_all.deb files.
Download all \*.deb files for the relevant architectures.

Create source of binary package¶

Extract all debian Packages to a directory matching the source package name and the version:
```
find . -name '*.deb' -exec dpkg -x {} xorg-server-21.1.13 \;
```

Unzip all man pages:

find xorg-server-21.1.13/usr/share/man/ -type f -name '*.gz' \
  -exec gzip -d {} \;

Fix all symbolic man-page links.

You can find them with:
```
find xorg-server-21.1.13/usr/share/man/ -type l -name '*.gz'
```
Delete the existing link files and replace them with ones without .gz-ending.

Create the \*.orig.tar.xz file.

tar -cJf xorg-server_21.1.13.orig.tar.xz xorg-server-21.1.13/

Copy the debian packaging from the source package

cp -R /path/to/source/package/xorg-server-21.1.13/debian \
      xorg-server-21.1.13/

A script like the following can help you to create the necessary install files.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Assuming that you have deb packages in directory debs/ this script will
# determine the list of files contained in each package and create
# *.install files for each package in a new directory tmp_install/.
# Prior content of tmp_install/ will be deleted.

create_install() {
  name=$1
  file=$2
  dir=$(mktemp -d)

  echo "Processing $name"

  dpkg -x $file $dir
  find $dir -type f -o -type l | sed -e "s|$dir/||" \
  | grep -v '/doc/' | grep -v '/bug/' \
  > "tmp_install/${name}.install"
  rm -rf $dir
}

dir="tmp_install"

rm -rf tmp_install
mkdir tmp_install

find debs -name '*.deb' | while read -r file; do
  name=$(echo $file | sed -e 's|.*\/\([^\_]*\)\_.*|\1|')
  create_install $name $file
done

echo "Install files created in tmp_install"

Edit Debian packaging¶

Remove the debian/patches/ directory.
In debian/control, remove all build dependencies (Build-Depends:, Build-Depends-Indep:) but debhelper-compat.
Change debian/source/format to:
```
3.0 (quilt)
```
Change debian/rules to:
```
#!/usr/bin/make -f

%:
        dh $@
```
Change the debian/docs and debian/\*.docs files to point to the correct source paths in usr/share/docs.

Validate the Debian packaging¶

Submit the package to a different PPA to avoid version-numbering collisions.
Check for build failure and fix these.
Check for missing files in the Debian packages and add these to /debian/\*.install.