deborg

Extract Debian package information from an Emacs orgmode file

About

deborg is personal package management made easy. Maintain a list of packages that you would like installed after a fresh OS install. Different packages can be installed depending on system (distro & release) or requirement (tags), and the list can be maintained as part of a well structured document with headings, paragraphs of text and comments. Then to install you only need one command to install them all:

dpkg -i $(deborg my_packages.org 'Debian' '10' --tags=server)

Usage

deborg is a python commandline tool to parse an Emacs orgmode file containing package specifications in unordered lists. Package information consists of a package name followed by an (optional) specification of distro, release and tags in curly braces {}, and separated by colons :.

(example.org):

+ package-foo
+ package-baz, package-baz-alt {Ubuntu}, package-baz-x {Ubuntu:20.04}
+ apache {::server}
+ office-app-a {::desktop}, office-app-b {Debian::desktop}

(example output):

deborg example.org Debian any_release
> package-foo package-baz

deborg example.org Debian any_release --tags=server
> package-foo package-baz apache

deborg example.org Debian any_release --tags=desktop
> package-foo package-baz office-app-b

deborg example.org Ubuntu any_release
> package-foo package-baz-alt

deborg example.org Ubuntu 20.04
> package-foo package-baz-x

deborg example.org Ubuntu 20.04 --tags=server,desktop
> package-foo package-baz-x apache office-app-a

Pre-requisites

• Python 3.8 or above

Installation

As mentioned in the Pre-requisites the default system python3 (/usr/bin/python3) has to be >=3.8 for the package to install correctly. That means that Debian from version 11 (bullseye) and Ubuntu from version 20.04 (focal) should work.

Manually

Download the latest package version from releases, and install with dpkg:

dpkg -i python3-deborg.deb

PPA

If you want automatic updates, you can use my ppa:

1. download my public gpg key (used to sign the packages) and save it in /usr/share/keyrings

   curl https://mtoboid.github.io/ppa/mtoboid-ppa-keyring.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/mtoboid-ppa.gpg > /dev/null
   

2. then add a sources file for the ppa to /etc/apt/sources.list.d:

   sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ppa-mtoboid.sources
   

   and write the following into the file:

   X-Repolib-Name: PPA mtoboid
   Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/mtoboid-ppa.gpg
   Types: deb
   URIs: https://mtoboid.github.io/ppa
   Suites: debian
   Components: main
   Architectures: all
   

3. install deborg:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install python3-deborg
   man deborg
   

Building

Python Package

If you haven't done so already clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/mtoboid/deborg.git

Then set up a virtual environment:

# go into project folder
cd deborg

# set up a virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

After that building is easy:

# make sure you have the venv activated and then
python3 -m build

The package and wheel should now be in dist/.

Debian Package

Switch the git branch to debian/master and see the README there.

License

deborg is released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later GPL-3+