How To Distribute Your Software Via Deb Repository

How have developed a stable software and distributing the source code via GitHub. Learn how to distribute your software via Deb Repository. Free and Open Software allows very aggressive marketing for free of cost. The pattern was basically set by Father of Free Software Foundation – Richard M. Stallman. The design is really aggressive for a noble clause – to compete with the closed source software. The only requirement is that, you really need to have developed software. Backlinks are automatic and natural. Obviously, link building is not the reason to know how to distribute your software via deb repository. The need is for giving the easy way to install your software from command line, mainly on servers with a simple command – apt-get install your-package. There are two types of packages – deb and rpm. We can interchange deb and rpm, but usually separately is the rule. This guide is for only .deb, not rpm.

 

How To Distribute Your Software Via Deb Repository : Understanding The Workflow

 

First, you need to build a stable .deb package from your source code and debug, test, check for possible vulnerabilities. Then, it is better to host on your website first. There are many distribution specific repositories like from the original Linux distributor i.e. Debian, Ubuntu plus there are independent mirrors. If you ever developed Plugin for WordPress, know it clearly – it is more difficult. You have to read their guide individually and be compliant with the rules. After releasing one, it will be easier work for you.

Your final goal should be creating a binary .deb package. Such package will be platform independent (32/64 bit) in ideal situation. To create a binary package you need a source package, which is your software on GitHub and you wrote how to wget it, build using make.
To create the source package you can use tools. Debhelper is the recommended for the beginners. The core of creating a source package is populating the DEBIAN directory in the source directory with a number of files clarifying where files need to be copied, what copyright and licensing scheme they belongs to, what dependencies they have and so on. These you actually wrote on GitHub Readme in Markdown. Whole thing can be automated, depending on programing language. Also, the input/output language has importance (like WordPress Plugins). After these steps, you can think to release via the Deb Repositories. There are things like which category it belongs to (like iTunes Podcast), for whom it is targeted for etc.

 

How To Distribute Your Software Via Deb Repository :

 

In which programming language the software is written is important. Example is usually given with Python software. Here are some helpful urls, which can accelerate your work :

When you’ll get listed, your users will need only to run apt-get install your-software, if you are not listed, they might have to add PPA. PPA means – Personal Package Archives.

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