Linux hackers surely already know this, but I’m only sorta a Linux hacker. This post documents a nice process for using apt to prepare an Ubuntu machine for development. In my case, I was trying to build a custom version of irssi that is patched to add SSL support to the irssi proxy module. Sure, I could have gone about this in the traditional manner, but given that irssi has a fair number of dependencies, it’s easier to let apt do the grunt work for me.
First, get the toolchain set up.
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall |
The build-essential and ‘check install’ targets are news to me. Build-essential, as the name suggests, includes some compilers and related tools that would be needed for building just about anything.
“Checkinstall keeps track of all files installed by a “make install” or equivalent, creates a Slackware, RPM, or Debian package with those files, and adds it to the installed packages database, allowing for easy package removal or distribution.”
Next, in preparation for building irssi itself, get all the dependencies for irssi. This works because irssi is already in the apt package database, so apt knows what the dependencies are.
sudo apt-get build-dep irssi |
From there, download the irssi source, patch it, and proceed to build / run / install it (perhaps installing with checkinstall so you can easily remove it later!)
p.s. this irssi proxy SSL patch isn’t working. bummer.
p.p.s stunnel works though!
