Debianizing a source package that has no debian subdirectory

[edbarx]

NOTE: Debianizing a package depends on the complexity of the package concerned. The procedure described below works for simple packages although with some more research it can be extended to work for other more complicated packages.

These are the steps:

1. make sure the source's root directory is named name-n.x.y where n, x, y are whole numbers.
2. cd inside the source's root directory
3. run dh_make as follows:

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   dh_make --createorig

4. dh_make interactively asks you some questions about the nature of the package, answer them.
5. Now cd to the newly created debian subdirectory. You need to create a new file with the name package.install where package does NOT include the version number. The format for package.install is simply:

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   file /path/to/file

6. If you need a launcher create it and save it under the source's root directory. In the package.install file list it as follows:

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   launchername /usr/share/applications

   This format works for a launcher (I used it in netman):

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   [Desktop Entry]
   Categories=Application;Speficy a categor; 
   Exec=executablename
   Comment=
   GenericName=executablename
   Icon=icon-if-any.ico
   Name=My Little Cool App
   Terminal=true/false
   Type=Application
   Categories=Speficy a category;

   Note: Keep the semicolons and consult other .desktop files.
   So, if we want to place our executable file under /usr/bin we would write:

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   programname /usr/bin

7. Check whether there is already a Makefile under the source's root directory. If present you probably need no more changes. However, make sure the compiled executable name is the same name you used in the previous step.
8. Create an orig source tarball as Debian mandates that . While in the source's root directory issue this command:

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   tar -czvf ../package_versionnumber.orig.tar.gz --exclude debian/ .

9. Once you did these steps correctly you can now build the new package as follows:

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   dpkg-buildpackage

Now, running dpkg-buildpackage should successfully create a nice .deb package for you. However, this depends on what programming language is used in the sources.

Enjoy.

EDIT: Replaced w with y in step 1.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Excellent guide, thank you very much for this!

[stevepusser]

I've found that I prefer using debmake to create a debian folder. It's a simple backport to Jessie, though you can also just safely download and install the current Stretch Python3 package on Jessie.