Debian Policy Manual
Appendix A - Introduction and scope of these appendices

These appendices are taken essentially verbatim from the now-deprecated Packaging Manual, version 3.2.1.0. They are the chapters which are likely to be of use to package maintainers and which have not already been included in the policy document itself. Most of these sections are very likely not relevant to policy; they should be treated as documentation for the packaging system. Please note that these appendices are included for convenience, and for historical reasons: they used to be part of policy package, and they have not yet been incorporated into dpkg documentation. However, they still have value, and hence they are presented here.

They have not yet been checked to ensure that they are compatible with the contents of policy, and if there are any contradictions, the version in the main policy document takes precedence. The remaining chapters of the old Packaging Manual have also not been read in detail to ensure that there are not parts which have been left out. Both of these will be done in due course.

dpkg is a suite of programs for creating binary package files and installing and removing them on Unix systems.[61]

The binary packages are designed for the management of installed executable programs (usually compiled binaries) and their associated data, though source code examples and documentation are provided as part of some packages.

This manual describes the technical aspects of creating Debian binary packages (.deb files). It documents the behaviour of the package management programs dpkg, dselect et al. and the way they interact with packages.

It also documents the interaction between dselect's core and the access method scripts it uses to actually install the selected packages, and describes how to create a new access method.

This manual does not go into detail about the options and usage of the package building and installation tools. It should therefore be read in conjuction with those programs' manpages.

The utility programs which are provided with dpkg for managing various system configuration and similar issues, such as update-rc.d and install-info, are not described in detail here - please see their manpages.

It does not describe the policy requirements imposed on Debian packages, such as the permissions on files and directories, documentation requirements, upload procedure, and so on. You should see the Debian packaging policy manual for these details. (Many of them will probably turn out to be helpful even if you don't plan to upload your package and make it available as part of the distribution.)

It is assumed that the reader is reasonably familiar with the dpkg System Administrators' manual. Unfortunately this manual does not yet exist.

The Debian version of the FSF's GNU hello program is provided as an example for people wishing to create Debian packages. The Debian debmake package is recommended as a very helpful tool in creating and maintaining Debian packages. However, while the tools and examples are helpful, they do not replace the need to read and follow the Policy and Programmer's Manual.

Debian Policy Manual