Mac OS .deb packaging trouble

Question

I've searched a lot, but didn't find the solution.

I need to package my ios app into .deb. I have installed Mac Ports and dpkg, I have control file in DEBIAN folder in MyApp folder I run /opt/local/bin/dpkg-deb -b MyApp and get error.

dpkg-deb: ignoring 3 warnings about the control file(s)

Can't use format gnu: No such format 'gnu': Invalid argument

There is another topic: How to create .deb packages on Mac OS X, but no answer to this question.

Answer 1

I assume you are using a tar implementation that does not support the GNU tar fotrmat, which dpkg-deb expects for its usage.

You should install GNU tar and either recompile dpkg to use that (usually named gtar) instead of simply the executable tar, or prepare a PATH environment to prefer the GNU tar when using dpkg-deb.

Newer dpkg versions detect this requirement at build time and will abort the build, to make sure this does not happen.