[php-maint] PHP debian package from upstream release

[Timothee Besset]

Jeremy Smith wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to reach the maintainers of the PHP5 package in order to
> see whether there were any scripts or procedures you use to prepare a
> debian package from an upstream source package.  I'm trying to build a
> debian package of PHP 5.3 alpha 2 (for internal use) so we can start
> targeting it and still be able to upgrade it to the real thing when it
> comes out at some point in the future.  Any tips you could give me
> would be most helpful; I've tried copying your debian/ directory from
> the latest 5.2 source package and applying/modifying it for the 5.3
> alpha 2 source, but as you can imagine this hasn't been particularly
> successful.  I've gotten as far as building the source, but I am
> obviously missing a few preparation steps because it fails when it
> gets to building the apache2 portion.  The specific error (which I'm
> sure is not unexpected) is:
>
> apache-build/libtool: No such file or directory
>
> This doesn't seem to be a problem in the real 5.2 source package,
> which I did successfully build from source just to make sure I wasn't
> missing any necessary dependencies.
>
> Thanks,
> Jeremy
>   
Look for the package maintainer guide on the debian website, there is a
lot of information, and a section about how to approach upstream
releases. If you have little experience with the packaging system, php
is a large and complex package, it will be pretty difficult.

Also, unstable [1] has php 5.2 packaged up already, that may be a better
starting point.

TTimo

[1] http://packages.debian.org/sid/php5