Packaging Python Project to Debian .deb Part 1

Hi, Have you ever try to package your code/project to became .deb or in official Debian or Ubuntu Repository to share to the rest of the world?

I have been one of you, it took me about three (3) weeks to figure out how to do it, i will tell you how i have done it.

I will split this into two Tutorials because it is to large to be complete in one tutorial.

We will begging by writing a simple python script with we will be packaging it letter.

Create a project directory and go to the created directory.

$ mkdir project_name && cd project_name

Create another directory inside the project name and move to the newly directory.

$ mkdir tvb && cd tvb

Now create a __init__.py for allowing the directory to be imported to python, and type our simple script.

$ cat > __init__.py

from __future__ import print_function
import argparse

print(‘The Virtual Brain imported!’)

def parse_args():
 parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
 parser.add_argument(‘text’, help=’Text to TVB-Neuropackage’)
 return parser.parse_args()

def main():
 print(‘This is the main function :)’)
 args = parse_args()
 print(args.text)

No go back to our main directory and creat the tvb file.

$ cd .. && cat > tvb-neurodebian.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import tvb
tvb.main()

Now we have to create a python setup script for local python setup.py install.

$ cat > setup.py

#!/usr/bin/python

from setuptools import setup

__author__ = ‘Your Full Name’

setup(
 name=’tvb-neurodebian’,
 version=’0.0.1',
 description=’Simple Package(Example) for packaging Tvb to Debian’,
 author=’Your Name’,
 author_email=’Your Email’,
 license=’GNU’,
 url=’https://github.com/umarbrowser/Neuropackage',
 packages=[‘tvb’],
 entry_points={
 ‘console_scripts’: [
 ‘tvb=tvb:main’,
 ]
 },
)

Let us see our project files if you don’t have tree install you have to install it(optional) using $ sudo apt-get install -y tree && tree

Let’s install our project and test it by running: $ python setup.py install

Let’s try running it by calling it name: $ tvb hello_world

That’s it See you in the Next tutorial for Starting installing the development tools for Debian Packaging.