26 February 2013

Package Java Apps for Ubuntu and Debian

Recently, I've dived into the subject of packaging Java programs into .deb installation packages for easy installation on Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian based systems. Often, when you Google the subject, you're met with guides that assume that you have downloaded a source tarball, i.e. you are packaging someone else's program. But what if you want to package your own program that happens to be programmed in Java? Then you probably don't have source tarballs, make scripts and whatnot, but instead a bunch of .class files and ressource files (e.g. images, sound files, etc.) in a directory hierarchy -- or perhaps one or more .jar files.