Let’s look at the fictive debianized Foo::Bar at version 0.03.
:: by - (dash), prepend lib and append
-perl: module Foo::Bar becomes package libfoo-bar-perl
App::Cleo is packaged as just cleo.
_
(underscore; compared to dash as used for CPAN modules).
0.03) and Debian revision (e.g. 1) are
delimited by - (dash).
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1_all.deb (pure perl) or
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1_$ARCH.deb (XS module),
e.g. libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1_amd64.deb on x86_64.
libfoo-bar-perl-dbgsym_0.03-1_$ARCH.deb (automatic debug symbols
for XS module)
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1.dsc (contains
some meta data and the hashsums of the other files mentioned below)
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03.orig.tar.$COMPRESSION,
e.g. libfoo-bar-perl_0.03.orig.tar.xz or
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03.orig.tar.gz
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1.debian.tar.xz (formerly
libfoo-bar-perl_0.03-1.diff.gz): Contains the actual packaging.
debian/changelog: Packaging changelog, defines actual version of
the package.
debian/control: Static source and binary package metadata.
debian/copyright: License declaration (machine-readable)
debian/rules: Makefile which defines what happens on package
build. Nowadays only contains one default rule using dh aka
debhelper plus what differs from the default.
make -f debian/rules
clean or—if the file is executable—like debian/rules clean.
debian/watch: Where to watch for new upstream releases.
dh-make-perl (in unpacked Perl module source): generates basic
Debian packaging based on CPAN meta data found in the source code.
dh-make-perl --cpan Foo::Bar: downloads and unpacks CPAN tar ball
first.
git) for the newly
created source package. Uses a git-buildpackage branch layout
(upstream, master and pristine-tar).
dh-make-perl --pkg-perl --cpan Foo::Bar: Sets package Maintainer
to the Debian Perl Group and finetunes package meta data and git
repository for team maintenance.
cpan2dsc Foo:Bar (also builds a Debian source package using
dpkg-buildpackage -b)
cpan2deb Foo:Bar (also builds a Debian binary package using
dpkg-buildpackage -S)
apt-file search + corelist)
build-essential: pulls in all packages necessary to build
a minimal Debian package plus GCC.
debhelper as it’s not strictly necessary.
pkg-perl-tools: contains the dpt helper tool for typical
Debian Perl package maintaining tasks. (Run dpt --help.)
git-buildpackage aka gbp: wrapper around git,
dpkg-buildpackage, and pristine-tar.
pristine-tar: Stores meta data of a tar-ball and everything else
needed to regenerate a tar ball bit by bit in addition to the
contents of the git repository.
dh-dist-zilla: debhelper plugin to build Debian packages
directly from a git checkout of a Dist::Zilla based module.
lintian: Debian package checker which find about 99% of all common
packaging mistakes, including typos in meta data, man pages,
etc.
adequate: Checker for installed packages.
autopkgtest + package pkg-perl-autopkgtest: Tools to run a
module’s test suite against the installed package.
blhc and bls-standalone: Check build logs for C compilation
issues (i.e. only useful for XS based modules).
cleo. :-)
Talk to the Debian Perl Group, e.g. on IRC. They are very helpful and always welcome new contributors.
The group already maintains over 3500 CPAN modules as Debian packages.