5. Building Debian Packages

debian-repos is a set of scripts to build TI’s Debian packages with a single command.

The generation of a Debian package from a binary or source involves many steps such as, obtaining the source code in tar (compressed) format, generating template files, modifying template file. The host build system and host build environment variables should also be configured.

The run.sh script handles these steps. Therefore, the building of a deb package for TI’s packages is as simple as running run.sh with the package’s name as a command line argument.

This repository is useful to the following audience:

Potential package contributors who want to fix bugs or add enhancements to TI packages.
Users who want to create a new package with the latest changes or customizations.
Anyone who wants to study Debian packaging.

5.1. Structure

The run.sh file is the “main” script. It takes as argument the name of the package to build.

Each TI package has a corresponding directory, named after its source package. Within this directory exists the suite/<distro-variant>/debian/ path. All Debian related files (control, rules, man pages etc) for the package are located here.

There also exists a <package-name>/version.sh file. This file is sourced by run.sh.

5.2. Setting Up Host for the build

debian-repos only supports native compilation of packages. Therefore, the build has to be done either on the ARM64 target or an ARM64 Docker Container.

When running on native ARM64 target, no additional setup is required. Proceed with Building the Package.

To setup and run an ARM64 Docker Container, run the following commands:

# Setup Qemu multiarch support
sudo apt install qemu binfmt-support qemu-user-static
docker run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static --reset -p yes

# Run ARM64 Container
docker pull ghcr.io/texasinstruments/debian-arm64:latest
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/texasinstruments/debian-arm64:latest bash

5.3. Building the Package

Clone debian-repos:

git clone https://github.com/TexasInstruments/debian-repos.git
cd debian-repos

Build package:
```
./run.sh <package-name>
```
Note

This command carries out all the necessary steps to build the package including installation of package-specific dependencies. The package and all related files are then stored in build/<package-name>.

For example: to build ti-linux-kernel, the command is:
```
./run.sh ti-linux-kernel
```
The output is then found in build/ti-linux-kernel/.

5.4. Adding Packages

To add a package, follow the following steps:

Create directory structure:

mkdir -p <proj-name>/suite/<distro-variant>/debian/

Copy all debian/ specific files that are relevant to building the package:
```
cp /path/to/debian/* -r  <proj-name>/suite/<distro-variant>/debian/
```
In <proj-name>/, create the version.sh file. The file must export the following variables:
```
git_repo # link from which to clone
```