I have a C/C++ am autoconf source package for Linux that consist of several binaries, logical in development as many of them share the same source. Some binaries run in a graphical environment, some are server components, some drivers for the server, libs and others are shell commands. I would like to make a proper debian package for this system (I already have a working checkinstall based install).
If I follow the Debian tutorials I can make a package for for all binaries in one. But how do I do if I want to make a package that just install one binary component? In my case installing graphical stuff separate from non-graphical stuff.
As it looks from the tutorials I need to make a separate source package for each package I want to maintain but that sounds stupid and I must have missed something.
Any help or pointers are welcome.
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Answer
A single source package can be build into multiple binary packages (aka .deb-files, which you can install). This is indeed a very common pattern when creating Debian packages.
To create multiple binary packages, you need to add a section for each of them to your debian/control file. Something like:
Source: foobarSection: utilsPriority: optionalMaintainer: me@example.comBuild-Depends: debhelper (>= 10~),Standards-Version: 4.1.1Homepage: https://github.com/foobar/foobarPackage: foobarSection: utilsArchitecture: anyMulti-Arch: sameDepends: foobar-common (= ${source:Version}), ${misc:Depends},Description: foo bar baz bla bla blaPackage: foobar-dataArchitecture: allDepends: ${misc:Depends},Description: foo bar baz (architecture independent files) libmysofa is a light weight C-library intended to read SOFA (Spatially Oriented bla bla bla. . this package contains the binary independent partsIn the simplest case you then need to specify which files go into which package:
$ cat debian/foobar.installfoobar usr/bin/foobar.1 usr/share/man/man1/$ cat debian/foobar-data.installdata/* usr/share/foobar/$Of course there is plenty of documentation available about this.