What difference between dpkg-buildpackage and debuild? What is better to use to build deb packages?
1 Answer
The difference between those two is that debuild is several tools in one whereas dpkg-buildpackage is just 1 step in the Debian package building process.
Debuild is a front-end wrapper for dpkg-buildpackage, lintian, fakeroot and debsign. It creates all the necessary files and runs the necessary steps to build a package, cryptographically sign it, and test it for policy violations and other checks.
You can just use dpkg-buildpackage and the other tools manually to build a package.
What works better depends on several factors that depend on the complexity of your project. If you want to learn more about package building it would better to complete the task manually first. This is only an opinion, to be clear.
I am going to include links to the Debian Build guide and a Debian Wiki page on how to build a Debian package to give you a broad overview of how package building works.
