Build Debian packages and offer them in PPAs

Into Your Own PPA

You need a PPA for Kup before you can use the next tool: The URL https://launchpad.net/~<Launchpad-ID>/+activate-ppa leads directly to the dialog where you can create a new PPA. Enter a name and description for the PPA and wait for confirmation from the server. The end of the process involves uploading your file with dput, which supports PPAs on Ubuntu systems. The general form is:

dput ppa:<Launchpad-ID>/<Name>

In the example here, my Launchpad ID is martin-loschwitz and the name of the PPA is kup, so the command I enter on the local system is:

# dput ppa:martin-loschwitz/kup

If you have successfully uploaded your file, you will receive email after a few seconds. Completed .deb packages should be available in your PPA directory a few minutes later (Figure 6).

Figure 6: The end of the story: Ready-to-use Debian packages on offer for download via a link in Launchpad.

Conclusions

The approach presented here might not turn you into a package pro, but it will solve the problem of getting newer versions of programs often not available in Ubuntu. The overhead when updating from one version to another is usually significantly lower than for the example I used in this article.

Infos

  1. Launchpad: http://www.launchpad.net
  2. "Kup" by Ferdinand Thommes, Linux Pro Magazine, issue 178, September 2015, pg. 44, http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Issues/2015/178/Kup
  3. Kup on kde-look.org: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Kup+Backup+System?content=147465
  4. openSUSE Build Service for Kup: https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:simper:kup
  5. Kup v0.6.0 source: https://launchpad.net/~martin-loschwitz/+archive/ubuntu/kup/+files/kup_0.6.0.orig.tar.gz
  6. Ubuntu package directory: http://packages.ubuntu.com
  7. "Protect Your Documents with GPG" by Juliet Kemp, Linux Pro Magazine, issue 137, April 2012, pg. 40, http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Online/Features/Protect-your-Documents-with-GPG/(language)/eng-US

The Author

Martin Gerhard Loschwitz works as a cloud architect at SysEleven in Berlin. He is also an official member of the Debian project and has been a Debian developer for more than 12 years.

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