peerspeak/packaging/debian

Debian / Ubuntu .deb build

This documents how the peerspeak_*.deb is produced, so the deb path is as self-documenting as the Arch (packaging/PKGBUILD) and AppImage paths.

The deb recipe itself lives in-repo as the [package.metadata.deb] block in the top-level Cargo.toml (cargo-deb's equivalent of a PKGBUILD). This file documents only the build environment, which is otherwise undiscoverable from a fresh clone.

TL;DR

# one-time: create + provision the build box (see "Build environment" below)
distrobox enter peerspeak-bookworm -- bash -lc '
  source ~/.cargo/env
  cd ~/git/butter/peerspeak
  export CARGO_TARGET_DIR=~/.cache/cargo-deb-targets/peerspeak   # MANDATORY, see below
  cargo deb
'
# output: $CARGO_TARGET_DIR/debian/peerspeak_<version>-1_amd64.deb

Build environment

• Base: a Debian 12 (bookworm) distrobox named peerspeak-bookworm. Created with distrobox create --name peerspeak-bookworm --image debian:12. Bookworm ships glibc 2.36, which sets the widest practical compatibility floor (see "glibc floor" below).
• NEVER build the .deb on the Arch host. Two independent reasons:
  1. The Arch host's glibc is far newer, so the resulting .deb would demand a glibc no normal Debian/Ubuntu user has, and ships an empty Depends.
  2. distrobox shares $HOME (and therefore the repo's target/) with the host, so a host build links Arch-compiled C objects into the "Debian" binary.

One-time provisioning inside the box

distrobox enter peerspeak-bookworm
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential pkg-config clang libclang-dev \
    libpipewire-0.3-dev libopus-dev libasound2-dev libxcb1-dev
# clang/libclang -> pipewire-sys bindgen ; libxcb1-dev -> link
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y
source ~/.cargo/env
cargo install cargo-deb

The mandatory separate CARGO_TARGET_DIR

Because distrobox shares $HOME, the repo's default target/ is the same directory the Arch host builds into. If you run cargo deb without overriding the target dir, cargo will happily reuse Arch-built .o/rlib artifacts and link them into the Debian binary, producing a .deb that crashes or demands the host's glibc.

Always point the build at a box-local cache:

export CARGO_TARGET_DIR=~/.cache/cargo-deb-targets/peerspeak

(Run cargo clean first if you ever suspect a polluted target dir.)

glibc floor

The .deb is built against the build box's glibc, which becomes the install floor (libc6 (>= 2.36) lands in Depends via $auto):

Build box	glibc	Runs on
debian:12 (current)	2.36	Debian 12+, Ubuntu 24.04+ (glibc ≥ 2.36)
ubuntu:26.04 (old)	2.43	Ubuntu 26.04+ only — too narrow, abandoned

If a friend is on something even older than Debian 12, drop the floor further by recreating the box from an older base image and rebuilding.

Runtime Depends / Recommends

• Depends = "$auto" — cargo-deb runs dpkg-shlibdeps, which discovers the linked shared libraries (PipeWire, Opus, ALSA, xcb, glibc, …) automatically.
• Recommends = "pixelpass, mpv" — pixelpass provides in-room screen sharing and mpv is the screen-share viewer (these are companion programs invoked as subprocesses, not linked libraries, so they are Recommends not Depends).

See pixelpass's own packaging/debian/README.md for why its Depends lists the whole GStreamer stack explicitly.