Module-Assistant - using upstream tarballs
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- Andrewsw
- (author)
- Chris Lale
- chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de (publisher)
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Revision History
Revision 1.0 | 17th January 2007 | Revised by Andrewsw | ||||||||||
Initial release. | ||||||||||||
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Revision 1.1 | 22nd November 2007 | Revised by Chris Lale | ||||||||||
Modified so that a stable version can be included in the "newbiedoc" package. | ||||||||||||
This is a simple hack to use an upstream tarball with Debian's module-assistant for upstream tarballs using gspca-source as an example. This issue has come up on debian-user a few times now in recent history (early 2007). The package gspca-source is the source code for building modules for a whole slew of webcams. Upstream has been keeping up a pretty good release pace that even sid has trouble keeping up with. I needed drivers for a Logitech Notebook Webcam. A quick check of lsusb and the compatibility list showed that the camera was supported, but unfortunately in a new release than was available in sid. Just to double check, I did an aptitude install gspca-source and built the modules with module-assistant. This confirmed that the camera was not recognised. So how to proceed?
1 Use the Source:Download the source tarball from upstream. mv it to /usr/src and unpack it. tar -xzf gspcav1-xxxx.tar.gz It will unpack in /usr/src/ but needs to be in /usr/src/modules/ so mv it there. Or be smarter than me and unpack it there in the first place. 2 Get the appropriate packages:aptitude install gspca-source (this should bring in module-assistant too...). unpack gspca-source.tar.bz2 (its in /usr/src/) tar -xjvf gspca-source.tar.bz2 3 Compare the two directories.You'll see that there is only one difference between the two: the debian package has an additional sub-dir "debian". cp -a that "debian" sub-dir into the upstream source directory: cp -a /usr/src/modules/gspca/debian /usr/src/modules/gspcav1-xxxx # xxxx is the versioning info from upstream. 4 Get rid of the debian source directoryrm -rf /usr/src/modules/gspca #CAREFUL!! or you could mv it aside mv /usr/src/modules/gspca /usr/src/modules/gspca-deb 5 rename the upstream directory:mv /usr/src/modules/gspcav1-xxxx /usr/src/modules/gspca 5.1 rename the debian source tarball:mv /usr/src/gspca-source.tar.bz2 /usr/src/gspca-source-orig.tar.bz2 6 ball up the modified upstream source:cd /usr/src tar -cjf gspca-source.tar.bz2 modules/gspca 7 Launch module-assistant and build away:m-a build gspca-source # I actually did it from the curses interace, so that's a guess - or - module-assistant # follow instructions on screen
Enjoy. 8 Appendix A: LicenceCopyright (c) 2007 Andrewsw Copyright (c) 2007 Chris Lale. chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de
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