Building the software

If you like to build the software you can get the Git repository from debexpo.workaround.org using:

git clone git://debexpo.workaround.org/debexpo.git

Then simply enter into the debexpo directory and execute make build:

cd debexpo
make build

It is easier in some situations to leave debexpo in its source directory and run it from there. However, if you wish to have it installed, create a virtualenv environment:

aptitude install python-virtualenv
virtualenv .
source bin/activate

Then you can safely:

make install

to install the package in your encapsulated environment.

If you attempt to install the package without virtualenv then setuptools (the Python software management system) will install the files into the system-wide directories /usr/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/. Setuptools is not good at removing files again and it is generally a bad idea to mix setuptools-installed packages with Debian packages. So you should know what you are doing.