I build and install a package by myself, how can I notice apt-get knows I installed it?

Question

That is my question. I build and install a package from source by myself. pkg-config knows it, but dpkg is unaware of it, can I manually let dpkg know my installation? For example, by change some files and use some commands? Thank you!

Answer 1

I'm assuming you want to make Debian "believe" that a package of a certain name is installed (although in reality it isn't).

You need to create a fake (empty) package with the appropriate name, and install that. There is a specialized tool for that, equivs.

Install equivs and run equivs-control, which will create a control file template that you then have to edit. You need to give it the name of the package that you want to emulate (and possibly set other attributes on the package, but that depends on your particular case).

Then run equivs-build on the template and it will create a fake Debian package that you can install.

Keep in mind that this amount to applying duct-tape to the packaging system and might lead to problems if not handled carefully.