dpkg - Debian's package maintenance system
The primary interface for the dpkg suite is the ‘dselect’ program;
a more low-level and less user-friendly interface is available in
the form of the ‘dpkg’ command.
Releases
--------
The current legacy, stable and development releases can be found at:
For older releases check:
Mailing List
------------
The subscription interface and web archives can be found at:
The mailing list address is (no subscription required to post):
debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org
Source Repository
-----------------
Building from git source
------------------------
To prepare the dpkg source tree from git before starting the build process
some required software needs to be installed:
GNU autoconf >= 2.60
GNU automake >= 1.8
GNU gettext >= 0.18 (or just autopoint if using --disable-nls)
flex
After installing the needed software, and running the following command on
the git tree:
$ autoreconf -f -i
the source should be roughly equivalent to the distributed tar source.
Building from tar source
------------------------
The minimum software required to configure and build dpkg from a tarball is:
C89 compiler with few C99 extensions (see doc/coding-style.txt)
GNU make
pkg-config
perl
To enable optional functionality or programs, this software might be needed:
zlib (used instead of gzip command-line tool)
xz's liblzma (used instead of xz command-line tool)
libbzip2 (used instead of bzip2 command-line tool)
libselinux
curses compatible library (needed on --enable-dselect)
To run the test suite («make check»):
TimeDate perl module
IO-String perl module
To enable additional developer's documentation («make doc») this software
will be needed:
pod2man
doxygen
dot
To enable translated documentation this software will be needed:
po4a >= 0.36.4 (>= 0.41 for VPATH builds)
To enable code coverage («./configure --enable-coverage; make coverage»)
this software is needed:
lcov (from the Linux Test Project)
Devel-Cover perl module
The build process is done by running the usual «./configure; make». To
see all available configuration options please run «./configure --help».
The following configure options might be of interest to disable specific
programs:
--disable-dselect
--disable-start-stop-daemon
--disable-update-alternatives
--disable-install-info
And the following to disable modifications to the build flags:
--disable-compiler-warnings
--disable-compiler-optimisations
--disable-linker-optimisations