How to setup a FPC and Lazarus Ubuntu repository

What is a repository?

A ubuntu repository is a directory. It can be stored on the lokal disk, or on a webserver or on a ftp server. To use it, you add its path into your /etc/apt/sources.list and setup a gpg key. Then you can simply install lazarus with your favourite package gui (e.g. synaptic) and fpc, fpc-src and lazarus will be downloaded, installed and updated automatically.

Who needs it?

Administrators who wants to install FPC+Lazarus on a pool of computers. Like in school. Or newbies who just want to quickly test it.

The directory structure

Let's assume you want create a repository available via the apache webserver. Then you need to setup a directory like /var/www/lazarus that is public readable and only writable by root.

Create the following sub directory:

 mkdir -p /var/www/lazarus/dists/lazarus-testing/universe/binary-i386

The debs

Put the fpc, fpc-src and lazarus deb files into it.

Creating the deb files yourself

You can create the debs with the scripts in tools/install/ of the lazarus sources.

• install development packages:

 sudo apt-get install fakeroot libgpmg1-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgtk1.2-dev libncurses5-dev

• Install the latest stable FPC. This is needed to build the new FPC and Lazarus:

 Either the deb files from the official site or the tar.gz.

• Download the FPC sources. To get the current development version you can use the command below. To get a more stable version, see [[1]]:

 svn co http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/fpc/trunk fpc

• Download the lazarus sources:

 svn co http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/trunk lazarus

• go into the lazarus install script directory:

 cd lazarus/tools/install

• build the fpc deb:

 ./create_fpc_deb.sh fpc /path/to/the/sources/of/fpc/

• install this fpc deb:

 dpkg -i