dpkg-checkbuilddeps?

Question

I'm trying to build an application from source on a Debian machine; the source code includes a 'debian' directory with all the files required to build the package (control/rules etc.).

When I run dpkg-buildpackage, it fails because I don't have the required dependencies. OK.

So, I run dpkg-checkbuilddeps, which gives me a very clear list of what the package dependencies are.

Am I now expected to verify the (parse-unfriendly) output of that tool manually? And then install each package myself? It seems insane to me to have such high quality tools that only get you 90% to your goal, so I must be doing something wrong.

How might I get from dpkg-checkbuilddeps to 'done'?

Thank you.

Answer 1

In the package source folder,

sudo mk-build-deps -i -t aptitude

will build, and install with aptitude, a package that pulls the build dependencies you need. mk-build-deps is part of the devscripts package.

Answer 2

Is this package a debian source package obtained via apt-get source? If so, you can just apt-get build-dep <packagename>.

You may be using this already - but this is one of my debian bible pages - building packages.