LinuxGuru: The Debian Packaging System

[ Thanks to Steven for this link.
]

“There are two main reasons that Debian is so popular, besides
its packages. The first reason is that Debian is not controlled or
updated by any one company or small group of people. Debian is
worked on by hundreds of developers nationwide, true open source.
The second is that Debian contains one of the most advanced and
useful packaging systems. Not only is it an easy process to build
or install a Debian package, excellent documentation is provided to
help even a young teen learn how to build one.

“Debian’s packaging system has a very simple name when being
worked with, ‘dpkg.’ Lets go with the theory that you are a new
Debian user (or maybe a new Linux user) and want to use the
features of Debian, including installing Debian package files
(.deb) instead of compiling the package from the source code. As
advanced as Debian’s packaging system is, it is very easy to
install a Debian package.

“For the first step you need to get all of the dependencies that
the program requires. You may want to just download these as debs
also (assuming they are available). Once you have the proper
dependencies downloaded and installed (or have deb files of them)
it is now time to demonstrate the proper command to install it. To
install a package, just issue the command: “dpkg –install
package-version.deb,” of course without the quotation marks and
comma. Be sure to replace ‘package’ and ‘version’ with the proper
file. This should install everything for you and you now can move
on to the next debs or begin using the package. If you receive
errors try downloading newer versions or consult the package
maintainer (found in the changelog file)…”

Complete
Story