Question

I have an application which I am creating for Ubuntu.

I come from a windows programming background and I am used to including the WiX source in my source control along side my source code. So it is tracked and changed with my source.

Now I am learning about deb packaging. All the tutorials say to download the source and then create the Debian folder and the rules, install, control, copyright etc files for doing the build.

There is no mention of source control for the stuff in the Debian folder. There seems like quite a lot of important information I would rather not reproduce everytime I need to build a new deb package.

If instead of this I add the debian folder to my source control along side my source. So when you download the source all the packaging rules are there ready do go.

Are there any problems with this approach?

Will I be breaking some packing rules by doing this?

Why are deb package source files not usually included in the source code?

Answer 1

This is actually encouraged and there are even tools for automatically building packages directly from SVN and Git. They also provide standardized layout and other functionality that is useful if you want your package including in Debian.