Building Debian packages from Source
apt-get source [-b] <package> Download the source Debian package for <package> and extract it. You must have deb-src lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list for this to work. If you supply the `-b' option and you are currently root, then the package will be automatically built if possible.
apt-get build-dep <package> Download and install the packages necessary to build the source Debian package <package>. This feature is only present in apt version 0.5 and up. Currently this means that woody and above contain this functionality. If you have an older version of apt then the easiest way to find out the build dependencies is to look in the debian/control file in the source package directory. A common usage of this command is in conjunction with apt-get source -b. For example (as root):
apt-get build-dep <package>
apt-get source -b <package>
Will download the source package, all of its build dependencies, and attempt to compile the source package.
dpkg-source -x <package.dsc> If you have downloaded the source package for a program manually, which includes several files such as a .orig.tar.gz (or .tar.gz if it is Debian native), a .dsc, and a .diff.gz (if it is not Debian native), then you can unpack the source package using this command on the .dsc file.
dpkg-buildpackage Builds a Debian package from a Debian source tree. You must be in the main directory of the source tree for this to work. Sample usage:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
Where `-rfakeroot' instructs it to use the fakeroot program to simulate root privileges (for ownership purposes), `-uc' stands for ``Don't cryptographically sign the changelog'', and `-b' stands for ``Build the binary package only''
debuild A handy wrapper script around dpkg-buildpackage that will automatically take care of using fakeroot or not, as well as running lintian and gpg for you. This script is provided by (
rogram ), so you need to install this package first.