Question

I’m trying to create a .deb file from a binary and support files. It works, however I get the following warning before I create it:

The installation of a package which violates the quality standards isn't allowed. 
This could cause serious problems on your computer. 
Please contact the person or organisation who provided this package
file and include the details beneath.

Lintian check results for /home/javaherd/program-5/debian/program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb:
E: program-v5: control-interpreter-without-depends control/rules #!/usr/bin/make
E: program-v5: wrong-file-owner-uid-or-gid usr/local/include/titles.txt 1006/1007
E: program-v5: wrong-file-owner-uid-or-gid usr/local/include/counties.txt 1006/1007

What can I do to rectify this situation?

Answer 1

Software is relatively easy to package for Debian and Ubuntu, but somewhat harder to package correctly. The result is that there are a lot of incorrectly packaged, unofficial *.deb packages floating around out there.

Here is how to address the problem. First, extract the contents of the archive into a new directory program by dpkg-deb -x program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb program. Second, look in the new directory program to see what’s in there; for, if you find what you need, it may solve your problem right there. Finally, apply the lintian command to the *.deb package, itself, by lintian program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb, which is likely to give you useful information about how the package was mispackaged in the first place (of course, you may have to install lintian first).

It is possible that lintian, so invoked, will only repeat the information it has already given you, but lintian can be invoked in several, different ways; so, now that you know how to invoke it manually, you can read the manpage and experiment.

If you do these things, they will give you much more information to lead you to a complete solution of your problem. Good luck.