Trying to grok an unknown package management system is daunting at first. Buut when you get your bearings it starts to get easier. Having played with debian packages for a day now I feel that it’s not as easy to work with as the gentoo ebuild system which I am used to, but it’s a lot faster to install the packages of course.
Some useful commands
Downloads a source package and unpacks it:
apt-get source
Where are the binary packages kept when downloaded?
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
Unpack a .deb file:
ar -x *.deb
Howto build a .deb package from source. Inside the main folder:
dpkg-buildpackage
Howto build a .deb package from binary. Below the main folder
dpkg -b
Install debian package directly
dpkg -i package.deb
