Well...It's basically all source since the application is written in Python and not using byte-compiled code...Problem is shough...The developer just told me it requires a patched libwnck and a patched python-gnome2-desktop to work and as much as i want to package this...I don't want to go through all the work of maintaining 2 more patched packages. Sorry for wasting your time :/ 2009/9/18 Smartboy

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Jeff Horelick wrote:

...

Hello Listmates,

I have a package here i'd really like to add to the AUR. The problem is that its packaged in a .deb. How would i go about packaging this for Arch? Feel free to just point at: "Look at this other package" or "Read this wiki page".

In case some of you guys don't know the formmat that a .deb is in:

An ar archive, inside there are 2 tarballs, one called control.tar.gz which for our purposes can be mostly ignored and one called data.tar.gz which has the actual application files laid out in the directory structure of the system similar to a Arch final binary package. (usr/bin/stuff, usr/share/stuff and so on).

Or would it be easier for me to just setup a GitHub or BitBucket account, drop all the source files on there and simply make a hg or git package? (For the record and all, it's not my project, but it is GPLv2 so....)

Use deb2targz to convert it to a binary suitable for integration with a pkgbuild. It would be better to just put the source files in GitHub, though, as using sources is preferred over binaries in Arch.

If you want an example of a PKGBUILD which converts a binary deb package to a tar.gz, see my oz-e17-tools packagehttp://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=23227 .

Smartboy