(debian-policy.info)Unpacking a Debian source package without dpkg-source

---

Prev: Source packages as archives Up: Source packages from old Packaging Manual

---

Enter node , (file) or (file)node

15.4 Unpacking a Debian source package without ‘dpkg-source’
============================================================

‘dpkg-source -x’ is the recommended way to unpack a Debian source
package.  However, if it is not available it is possible to unpack a
Debian source archive as follows:

  1. Untar the tarfile, which will create a ‘.orig’ directory.

  2. Rename the ‘.orig’ directory to ‘package-version’.

  3. Create the subdirectory ‘debian’ at the top of the source tree.

  4. Apply the diff using ‘patch -p0’.

  5. Untar the tarfile again if you want a copy of the original source
     code alongside the Debian version.

It is not possible to generate a valid Debian source archive without
using ‘dpkg-source’.  In particular, attempting to use ‘diff’ directly
to generate the ‘.diff.gz’ file will not work.

Restrictions on objects in source packages

Restrictions on objects in source packages<2>.