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Installing Programs

Explore the process of building and installing programs within the Debian packaging system. Understand how dh_auto_build automates build detection, how to use Makefiles for installation, and how to integrate custom build and install commands. Learn to manage file installation with dh_install and properly handle package dependencies and architecture settings to create robust Debian packages.

Automatic build and installation

Often, there isn’t much to do when building and installing programs. The dh_auto_build step can autodetect a few build systems and can just as automatically use them to build our software. Then dh_auto_install picks up the build artifacts and installs them where they need to go to land in the final Debian package.

At the time of writing, dh_auto_build can detect and use the following build systems:

  • autoconf
  • Perl’s MakeMaker (a Makefile.PL that generates a Makefile)
  • Plain Makefiles that support build and install targets (with DESTDIR for the installation step)
  • Python’s setuptools installers
  • cmake
  • ant
  • qmake
  • qmake_qt4
...