Preparation #
Install the required tools by aquiring:
$ apt install build-essential fakeroot dpkg-dev
Get source package #
DEB source packages are made up of three files the .dsc which describes the package, the .debian.tar.gz, and .orig.tar.gz. Usually any package found in a distribution will also have the source package files available.
From package manager #
Ensure the ‘deb-src’ repositories are enabled, by adding the deb-src locations to the /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* files:
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ focal-updates main restricted
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ focal-updates main restricted
...etc
Get the source code package and any dependencies needed to build it:
# Get the source of 'package'
$ apt source package
From online #
For example, on Debian, the meson binary package found here:
https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/meson/meson_0.56.2-1_all.deb
also has a source package files found nearby:
https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/meson/meson_0.56.2-1.debian.tar.xz https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/meson/meson_0.56.2-1.dsc https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/meson/meson_0.56.2.orig.tar.gz
Extract source package #
Unpack the package contents from the downloaded file:
$ dpkg-source -x package_<version>-<revision>.dsc
This will extract the content into a folder in the working directory with a name like package-0.0.0/ which will have everything necessary.
Get build dependencies for the package #
Navigate to the source directory, such as package-0.0.0/ and:
apt build-dep .
Build the package #
If the only thing to do is to build a package as it already is, is to navigate into the source directory, such as package-0.0.0/ and:
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
This will build both the binary and source package.
To build just the binary, use the -b argument, or for just the source package files, -S.