Debianzing a Python program to get a .deb [duplicate]

Answer 1

I just tested stdeb (see https://pypi.python.org/pypi/stdeb), a Python package for turning any other Python package into a Debian package.

First I installed stdeb:

apt-get install python-stdeb

Then I made a simple script called myscript.py with the following contents:

def main():
    print "Hello world, says myscript!"
    # wait for input from the user
    raw_input()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Importantly, your directory structure should be:

somewhere/myscript/
    setup.py
    myscript/
        __init__.py
        myscript.py

In the setup.py file, you do something like:

import os
from setuptools import setup
from nvpy import nvpy

setup(
    name = "myscript",
    version = "1.0",
    author = "Charl P. Botha",
    author_email = "cpbotha@vxlabs.com",
    description = "Demo of packaging a Python script as DEB",
    license = "BSD",
    url = "https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy",
    packages=['myscript'],
    entry_points = {
        'console_scripts' : ['myscript = myscript.myscript:main']
    },
    data_files = [
        ('share/applications/', ['vxlabs-myscript.desktop'])
    ],
    classifiers=[
        "License :: OSI Approved :: BSD License",
    ],
)

The console_scripts directive is important, and it'll create an executable script called my_script, which will be available system-wide after you install the resultant DEB. If your script uses something like tkinter or wxpython and has a graphical user interface, you should use gui_scripts instead of console_scripts.

The data_files directive will install a suitable desktop file into /usr/share/applications, so that you can also start myscript from your desktop environment. vxlabs-myscript.desktop looks like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=myscript
Comment=Minimal stdeb example
# myscript should wait for user input at the end, else the terminal
# window will disappear immediately.
Exec=myscript
Icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/48x48/apps/file-manager.png
Categories=Utility;
# desktop should run this in a terminal application
Terminal=true
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=myscript

To build the DEB, you do the following in the top-level myscript:

python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command bdist_deb

Which will create a .deb in the deb_dist directory.

After having installed the DEB I created like this, I could run myscript from the command-line, and I could also invoke it from my desktop environment.

Here's a GitHub repository with the example code above: https://github.com/cpbotha/stdeb-minimal-example