Part I. Know your packages

Searching

Find a package that contains expression in its name

aptitude search expression

or

apt-cache search expression

Information about packages

Basic information (a.k.a. status) for an installed package

dpkg -s package

To get information (version number etc.) about an uninstalled package

apt-cache show package

Discover a package’s dependencies

apt-cache depends package

or what other packages are dependant on this package

apt-cache rdepends package

To find out what files are placed on what location by a certain package (that’s already installed) use

dpkg -L package

If it’s a service, you can find the files it consists of with

dpkg-query -S service

Part II. Building packages

You can build a package’s dependencies using apt-get’s build-dep subcommand

sudo apt-get build-dep package

Obtaining a package’s source

bzr branch ubuntu:packagename

or

bzr branch lp:projectname

Building the package

bzr builddeb -- -S

(-- denotes that options to the builder follow, -S is to create only a source package)

or

dpkg-buildpackage -S

(omit -S to build a .deb file)

Install the package

dpkg -i ../package.deb

References

Ubuntu packaging guide

• Fixing a bug
• Packaging new software

Debian New Maintainers’ Guide

• Building the package

Manpages

• deb-control