How to Use Checkinstall to Build RPM and DEB Packages from Source

Installing Checkinstall

On Debian and its derivatives, install Checkinstall with the package manager: # aptitude install checkinstall On Red Hat‑based distributions, download a pre‑built RPM (for example the CentOS 6 package) and install it:

# wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/ikoinoba/CentOS_CentOS-6/x86_64/checkinstall-1.6.2-3.el6.1.x86_64.rpm
# yum install checkinstall-1.6.2-3.el6.1.x86_64.rpm

After Checkinstall is installed, you can create a package from any install command using the following syntax: # checkinstall <install‑command> If no command is supplied, Checkinstall defaults to make install.

Creating an RPM or DEB with Checkinstall

In this example we build a package for htop , a interactive process viewer similar to top.

First download the source and extract it to /usr/local/src:

# cd /usr/local/src
# wget http://hisham.hm/htop/releases/1.0.3/htop-1.0.3.tar.gz
# tar xzf htop-1.0.3.tar.gz
# cd htop-1.0.3

Check the installation command (htop uses make install):

# ./configure
# make install

Now run Checkinstall without additional parameters; it will invoke make install and ask a few questions to generate the package:

# ./configure
# checkinstall

Answer “Y” when prompted to create default documentation, provide a short description, and press ENTER to accept defaults or modify values as needed.

Checkinstall will then automatically generate an .rpm or .deb package depending on your Linux distribution.

Example output on CentOS 7:

Example output on Debian 7:

For more details, see the original article at http://ask.xmodulo.com/build-rpm-deb-package-source-checkinstall.html .