Dpkg

dpkg is the base of the Debian package management system. It was created by Ian Jackson in 1993. dpkg is similar to RPM, as it is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages.

dpkg itself is a low level tool; higher level tools, such as APT, are used to fetch packages from remote locations or deal with complex package relations.

The Debian package "dpkg" provides the dpkg program, as well as several others necessary for run-time functioning of the packaging system, including dpkg-statoverride, dpkg-divert and update-alternatives. It also includes the programs such as start-stop-daemon and install-info, and the latter is kept mostly due to backwards compatibility (it is developed and distributed separately nowadays). The Debian package "dpkg-dev" includes the numerous build tools described below.

dpkg build tools

Debian has a series of tools that have to be called to construct a package. They are the following:

• dpkg-source packs and unpacks the source files of a Debian package.
• dpkg-deb packs and unpacks binary packages
• dpkg-gencontrol reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source and generates a binary package control package, creating an entry for this in Debian/files.
• dpkg-shlibdeps calculates the dependencies of runs with respect to libraries.
• dpkg-genchanges reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source that once constructed creates a control file (.changes).
• dpkg-buildpackage is a control script that can be used to construct the package automatically.
• dpkg-distaddfile adds a file input to debian/files.
• dpkg-parsechangelog reads the changes file (changelog) of an unpacked Debian tree source and creates a conveniently prepared output with the information for those changes.

External links

• Debian's dpkg package
• Debian dpkg mailing list