Making a debian package of Inkscape on Ubuntu Hardy
July 3rd, 2008 by heathenxAlright…this is going to be a little rough and not quite as thorough as I would like but I wanted to document it now while it was fresh in my mind. After visiting this site and this site I was able to cobble some steps together to build a debian package of a recent Inkscape development release for Ubuntu Hardy. This may not work for everyone but it worked for me and I was able to use the deb package on a newly installed version of Ubuntu Hardy to make sure it worked.
Here are the steps that I took:
1.) Install the necessary packages to build Inkscape (some tools may not be needed)
sudo apt-get install autotools-dev fakeroot dh-make build-essential autoconf automake intltool libglib2.0-dev libpng12-dev libgc-dev libfreetype6-dev liblcms1-dev libgtkmm-2.4-dev libxslt1-dev libboost-dev libpopt-dev libgsl0ldbl libgsl0-dev libgsl0-dbg libgnome-vfsmm-2.6-dev libssl-dev libmagick++9-dev libwpg-dev
2.) Download a recent devel tarball from Inkscape Subversion Snapshots
save inkscape-XXXXX.tar.bz2 to /home/user dir.
3.) Untar inkscape-XXXXX.tar.bz2 to /home/user. This will make a new dir called inkscape-XXXX
4.) Make the debian control files:
dh_make --createorig
Pick Single for single binary
Fill in any extra information like maintainer and version
5.) Run the following:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
If everything goes as planned and after a long wait you should get:
inkscape_XXXXXX-1_i386.deb in your /home/user dir.
I haven’t yet figured out how to install this package or prepare it to run along side the stable 0.46 release. If anyone knows how then please give me a jingle.
Here’s my deb package of Inkscape 0.46+devel revision 19107, July 2, 2008:
Use it at your own risk and don’t bitch at me if it doesn’t work. You can always uninstall it and go back to the stable release. I am really looking forward to Inkscape 0.47. They are woring on some really neat features like Spiro, Live Path Effects and Filter Effects. Check it out. 
By the way, this was my first deb package. I didn’t adhere to the Debian package standards.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Here is how I do this:
1. Create directory where compilation will take place, sth like ~/temp/, and cd to that dir
2. run “svn co https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk”
3. cd to ~/temp/inkscape and run “./autogen.sh”
4. Run ./configure
5. Edit inkscape.spec:
- change “Name” from “inkscape” to “inkscape-svn” (so package will be installed next to stable inkscape release)
- make sure there are no spaces/tabs between fileds names and values (those coused some problems when using checkinstall)
6. Run “checkinstall” as root/fakeroot (if you do this as user, checkisntall will create package , but permissions for all files in this package will be set to read/write for user, which is not a good idea if prefix is /usr/local (default))
7. Package will be automaticly installed and stored in current dir
7. To run inkscape from svn: /usr/local/bin/inkscape
8. To run stable inkscape from repo: /usr/bin/inkscape, or just inkscape
And btw, there is already one guy who creates debian packages every week from current svn, I don’t know if his repo is trusworthy, but should should work under ubuntu: http://art.sidux.com
July 5th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
AWESOME! Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.
Btw, I was able to compile another one this morning. I think it was revision 19185.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:32 am
@Inkscaper
I was messing around with dh_make and discovered the man page for it. I can set the package name to “inkscape-svn” like you are doing in the inkscape.spec file. Here is what I am doing now:
Before:
dh_config –createorig
Now:
dh_make –createorig –single –packagename inkscape-svn
or
dh_make -r -s -p inkscape-svn (just a shorter version of the above)
I’m re-compiling now and hopefully I’ll be able to have both stable and svn versions installed.
Btw, I did check out art.sidux.com repo but I’m afraid to use them. Since those are built for Debian Sid are they ok to use for Ubuntu Hardy? I’m thinking about hosting my deb packages too. I’m not interested in setting up a repo though. Maybe Richard and I can put that somewhere on our web site.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Great tutorial and Build can u , update us monthly with these builds ?!
some people find it hard to compile it from source on ubuntu , lack of dev. packages .
i also compiled it and make my own package in order to try your spiro tutorial
September 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am
I would love to make current deb packages available. Unfortunately, I don’t trust myself and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining the Inkscape experience for someone. Plus, I never figured out how to install the devel version into a different directory so that one could have both stable and devel installed.
Originally, I thought that I wanted to make these Inkscape deb’s available but I’m not sure what is the best way to go about it. I fear that I really don’t know what I’m doing and I wouldn’t be able to troubleshoot install problems for people.
I have stopped making deb packages for myself and have chosen to compile into a separate directory so that I can have both versions on my system. I use Ted Gould’s install procedure and it has worked very well.
download from: http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/?M=D
cd inkscape-XXXXX
./autogen.sh
mkdir build
cd build
../configure –prefix=`pwd`/../install
make install
September 5th, 2008 at 5:48 am
i tried but it crashes all the time , but doing auto-save that’s great . the compiled edition i made and the other dev. release i tried crashes in certain actions .
so i removed them all and back to using the old stable package ( it stopped crashing ) , but somehow, i can’t try or use any of the new tools and cool stuff .
compiling from source takes time and never done without errors !!!
through my search i found many un-official packages for debian , however many of them are old and no updates weekly ,
i tired to add http://art.sidux.com/ to my apt sources.list , but somehow it dosen’t work !!!
am still trying ( hope it’ll be stable )
September 5th, 2008 at 8:05 am
@Hamza ED
Well, that’s why they call them devel versions. They’re sometimes unstable. If it helps I can try to make a deb package for you of the mos current one. Unfortunately, it will overwrite your stable version.
Personally, I haven’t noticed much crashed in the recent builds. I use my dev version more often then I use the stable version for my own stuff.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:34 am
it would be great , thanks alot , my compiled one (deve) already overwrite the stable one . so it would be great to use the package u’ll make , ( i am waiting for it cause i usually make my sites layouts with inkscape since 2 years ) . and it would be great to try all features at once .
The compiled dev. edition , is crashed in simpled tasks and most of the filters never works , as they are working on the stable version ;( .
September 7th, 2008 at 11:22 am
@Hamza Ed
Okay, I compiled the latest and greatest one this morning for you (Sept 7th, 2008). I didn’t bother filling out any of the package details. It’s version 19811. I installed it in my virtual machine and it installed just fine after I updated my libpango packages.
You can find the deb package and misc files here: http://inkscape.heathenx.org
September 7th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Thank You , very much its working More than Great indeed
still some effects don’t work , just workin in the stable release . as perspective ! am trying to figure it out
Thanks again
October 7th, 2008 at 8:06 am
[...] few months ago I got awfully interested in making debian packages for development versions of Inkscape for Ubuntu. I wanted them mainly for myself but thought maybe [...]