stdeb 0.5.0

master branch

This branch is recommended for all users. It requires Debhelper 7, and thus requires Ubuntu Intrepid or Debian Lenny (unless you use backports).

• 2009-12-30: Version 0.5.0. See the download page. Highlights for this release (you may also wish to consult the full changelog):

  • A new pypi-install script will automatically download, make a .deb, and install packages from the Python Package Index (PyPI).

  • Removal of the setuptools dependency.

  • New option (–guess-conflicts-provides-replaces) to query original Debian packages for Conflicts/Provides/Replaces information.

  • As a result of these changes and to fix a couple bugs/warts, some minor backwards incompatible changes and deprecations were made. Please check the release notes.

• 2009-12-28: Version 0.4.3 Released. See the download page. See the changelog and release notes.

• 2009-11-02: Version 0.4.2 Released. See the download page. See the changelog and release notes.

• 2009-10-04: Version 0.4.1 Released. See the download page. See the changelog and release notes.

• 2009-09-27: Version 0.4 Released. See the download page. This version switches to debhelper 7. See the Changelog for 0.4.

old-stable branch (0.3 and earlier)

This branch is recommended if you are operating on older Debian/Ubuntu distributions. It is compatible with Ubuntu Hardy.

• 2009-10-04: Version 0.3.2 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.3.2

• 2009-09-27: Version 0.3.1 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.3.1

• 2009-03-21: Version 0.3 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.3

• 2009-02-17: Version 0.2.3 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.2.3

• 2009-01-29: Version 0.2.2 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.2.2

• 2008-04-26: Version 0.2.1 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.2.1

• 2008-04-26: Version 0.2 Released. See the download page. See the Changelog for 0.2

• 2007-04-02: Version 0.2.a1 Released. See the old download page.

• 2006-06-19: Version 0.1 Released. See the old download page.

pypi-install, command-line command

pypi-install takes a package name, queries PyPI for it, downloads it, builds a Debian source package and then .deb from it, and this installs it:

pypi-install [options] mypackage

py2dsc, command-line command

py2dsc takes a .tar.gz source package and build a Debian source package from it:

py2dsc [options] mypackage-0.1.tar.gz # uses pre-built Python source package

sdist_dsc, distutils command

All methods eventually result in a call to the sdist_dsc distutils command. You may prefer to do so directly:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command sdist_dsc

A Debian source package is produced from unmodified Python packages. The following files are produced in a newly created subdirectory deb_dist:

• packagename_versionname.orig.tar.gz

• packagename_versionname-debianversion.dsc

• packagename_versionname-debianversion.diff.gz

These can then be compiled into binary packages using the standard Debian machinery (e.g. dpkg-buildpackage).

bdist_deb, distutils command

Also, a bdist_deb distutils command is installed. This calls the sdist_dsc command and then runs dpkg-buildpackage on the result:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command bdist_deb

A note about telling distutils to use the stdeb distutils commands

Distutils command packages can also be specified in distutils configuration files (rather than using the --command-packages command line argument to setup.py), as specified in the distutils documentation. Specifically, you could include this in your ~/.pydistutils.cfg file:

[global]
command-packages: stdeb.command

Quickstart 1: Install something from PyPI now, I don’t care about anything else

Do this from the command line:

pypi-install mypackage

Warning: Despite doing its best, there is absolutely no way stdeb can guarantee all the Debian package dependencies will be properly fulfilled without manual intervention. Using pypi-install bypasses your ability to customize stdeb’s behavior. Read the rest of this document to understand how to make better packages.

Quickstart 2: Just tell me the fastest way to make a .deb

(First, install stdeb as you normally install Python packages.)

Do this from the directory with your setup.py file:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command bdist_deb

This will make a Debian source package (.dsc, .orig.tar.gz and .diff.gz files) and then compile it to a Debian binary package (.deb) for your current system. The result will be in deb_dist.

Warning: installing the .deb file on other versions of Ubuntu or Debian than the one on which it was compiled will result in undefined behavior. If you have extension modules, they will probably break. Even in the absence of extension modules, bad stuff will likely happen.

For this reason, it is much better to build the Debian source package and then compile that (e.g. using Ubuntu’s PPA) for each target version of Debian or Ubuntu.

Quickstart 3: I read the warning, so show me how to make a source package, then compile it

This generates a source package:

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/R/Reindent/Reindent-0.1.0.tar.gz
py2dsc Reindent-0.1.0.tar.gz

This turns it into a .deb using the standard Debian tools. (Do this on the same source package for each target distribution):

cd deb_dist/reindent-0.1.0/
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -us

This installs it:

cd ..
sudo dpkg -i python-reindent_0.1.0-1_all.deb

Another example, with more explanation

This example is more useful if you don’t have a Python source package (.tar.gz file generated by python setup.py sdist). For the sake of illustration, we do download such a tarball, but immediately unpack it (alternatively, use a version control system to grab the unpacked source of a package):

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/R/Reindent/Reindent-0.1.0.tar.gz
tar xzf Reindent-0.1.0.tar.gz
cd Reindent-0.1.0

The following will generate a directory deb_dist containing the files reindent_0.1.0-1.dsc, reindent_0.1.0.orig.tar.gz and reindent_0.1.0-1.diff.gz, which, together, are a debian source package:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command sdist_dsc

The source generated in the above way is also extracted (using dpkg-source -x) and placed in the deb_dist subdirectory. To continue the example above:

cd deb_dist/reindent-0.1.0
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -us

Finally, the generated package can be installed:

cd ..
sudo dpkg -i python-reindent_0.1.0-1_all.deb

For yet another example of use, with still more explanation, see allmydata-tahoe ticket 251.

stdeb distutils command options

The sdist_dsc command takes command-line options to the distutils command. For example:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command sdist_dsc --debian-version 0MyName1

This creates a Debian package with the Debian version set to “0MyName1”.

These options can also be set via distutils configuration files. (These are the setup.cfg file alongside setup.py and the ~/.pydistutils.cfg file.) In that case, put the arguments in the [sdist_dsc] section. For example, a project’s ~/.setup.cfg file might have this:

[sdist_dsc]
force-buildsystem: False

To pass these commands to sdist_dsc when calling bdist_deb, do this:

python setup.py sdist_dsc --debian-version 0MyName1 bdist_deb

You may also pass any arguments described below for the stdeb.cfg file via distutils options. Passing the arguments this way (either on the command line, or in the [sdist_dsc] section of a distutils .cfg file) will take precedence. The option name should be given in lower case.

stdeb.cfg configuration file

You may write config files of the format understood by ConfigParser. When building each package, stdeb looks for the existance of a stdeb.cfg in the directory with setup.py. You may specify an additional config file with the command-line option –extra-cfg-file. The section should should either be [DEFAULT] or [package_name], which package_name is specified as the name argument to the setup() command. An example stdeb.cfg file is:

[DEFAULT]
Depends: python-numpy
XS-Python-Version: >= 2.6

All available options:

The option names in stdeb.cfg files are not case sensitive.