We’ll use our simple game Cave Fizzer as an example again. It’s a libGDX project and we can simply export the desktop sub-project as a runnable jar. Once we have done so the challenge is to generate a .deb that we can install on Debian or Ubuntu.
A useful guide to build a Debian installer can be found here: http://blog.pryds.eu/2013/02/package-java-apps-for-ubuntu-and-debian.html. It covers all the information needed to get the job done. Please refer to it for further explanations. I don’t want to be redundant here.
Although I encourage you to study the subject in order to understand what is going on, we’ll take the pragmatic approach here and apply a shell script to quickly build the package.
So export your runnable jar. From now on we’ll be working outside Eclipse (or any other IDE). Create a directory, for the Cave Fizzer example:
mkdir debcavefizzer cd debcavefizzer |
Copy your jar into this directory. You’ll need several more configuration files, ending up like this:
~/debcavefizzer$ ls -1 cavefizzer cavefizzer.desktop cavefizzericon.svg CaveFizzer.jar changelog control copyright packagedeb.sh |
The first one is a shell script to start the Java application. A symbolic link to the jar file would do as well (as long as jarwrapper or similar functionality has been installed).
cavefizzer:
#!/bin/sh java -jar /usr/share/cavefizzer/CaveFizzer.jar |
The desktop file is needed to have a categorized launcher. In this example it looks like this:
cavefizzer.desktop:
[Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Cave Fizzer Comment=Cave Fizzer Game Exec=/usr/games/cavefizzer Icon=/usr/share/cavefizzer/cavefizzericon.svg Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Game StartupNotify=true |
Vector graphics are scalable, so we use a 32 * 32 svg here as an icon, made with Inkscape.
Debian requires a changelog. We’ll generate it with our shell script later.
The control file contains the metadata about our package, including (most importantly) its dependencies.
control:
Section: games Priority: optional Architecture: all Maintainer: Serge HelfrichDescription: How deep can you penetrate our cave system? Meet the Fizzer in his exploration of the underground world. * Travel as far as you can. * Do not hit the rocks. * Impress your friends on Google Play Games. Depends: openjdk-8-jre | openjdk-7-jre | openjdk-6-jre | oracle-java8-installer | oracle-java7-installer | oracle-java6-installer | jarwrapper
Debian requires a copyright notice. For now:
copyright:
This package was debianized by Serge Helfrich helfrich@xs4all.nl on Sun Oct 19 13:51:31 CEST 2014. It was downloaded from http://pygmalion.nitri.de/cavefizzer/CaveFizzer.jar Copyright: (c) 2014 Serge Helfrich This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Debian system; see the file /usr/doc/copyright/GPL. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
Finally we write a shell script to wrap it all up and deliver a .deb package:
packagedeb.sh:
#!/bin/sh PACKAGE_NAME="cavefizzer" PACKAGE_VERSION="0.1.1" SOURCE_DIR=$PWD TEMP_DIR="/tmp" mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/DEBIAN mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/lib mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/games mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/applications mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/$PACKAGE_NAME mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/doc/$PACKAGE_NAME mkdir -p $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/common-licenses/$PACKAGE_NAME echo "Package: $PACKAGE_NAME" > $TEMP_DIR/debian/DEBIAN/control echo "Version: $PACKAGE_VERSION" >> $TEMP_DIR/debian/DEBIAN/control cat control >> $TEMP_DIR/debian/DEBIAN/control cp *.desktop $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/applications/ cp copyright $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/common-licenses/$PACKAGE_NAME/ # results in no copyright warning #cp copyright $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/doc/$PACKAGE_NAME/ # results in obsolete location warning cp *.jar $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/$PACKAGE_NAME/ cp $PACKAGE_NAME $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/games/ echo "$PACKAGE_NAME ($PACKAGE_VERSION) trusty; urgency=low" > changelog echo " * Rebuild" >> changelog echo " -- Serge Helfrich <helfrich@xs4all.nl> `date -R`" >> changelog gzip -9c changelog > $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/doc/$PACKAGE_NAME/changelog.gz cp *.svg $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/$PACKAGE_NAME/ chmod 0664 $TEMP_DIR/debian/usr/share/$PACKAGE_NAME/*svg PACKAGE_SIZE=`du -bs $TEMP_DIR/debian | cut -f 1` PACKAGE_SIZE=$((PACKAGE_SIZE/1024)) echo "Installed-Size: $PACKAGE_SIZE" >> $TEMP_DIR/debian/DEBIAN/control chown -R root $TEMP_DIR/debian/ chgrp -R root $TEMP_DIR/debian/ cd $TEMP_DIR/ dpkg --build debian mv debian.deb $SOURCE_DIR/$PACKAGE_NAME-$PACKAGE_VERSION.deb rm -r $TEMP_DIR/debian |
Run the script as root:
sudo ./packagedeb.sh |
Run lintian on the result and make adjustments where necessary.
lintian -i cavefizzer-0.1.1.deb |
Hello ,
Great tutorial ,
Have you the code source please ?
Tk