Basically, it's straightforward, but one can run into minor issue. First, you need all the prerequisites for building debian packages like dpkg-dev, C compilers, the full set of autotools and more. While building, dpkg-buildpackage is verbose enough to indicate missing dependencies. Should that happen, apt install them and restart the build process.
http://developer.linuxmint.com/reference/git/cinnamon-tutorials/building.html
Follow them step-by-step.
Muffin is the only package that currently gives some issues. There are 2 build issues which are easy to fix though.
- don't treat some warnings as errors:
see: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/muffin/blob/master/f/0001-fix-warnings-when-compiling.patch
This patch will fix it, just one line in src/Makefile.am needs to be changed
diff --git a/src/Makefile.am b/src/Makefile.am
index cbb5b3a..d2aa04f 100644
--- a/src/Makefile.am
+++ b/src/Makefile.am
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ Meta-$(api_version).gir: libmuffin.la
muffin-enum-types.h \
$(libmuffininclude_base_headers) \
$(filter %.c,$(libmuffin_la_SOURCES))
-@META_GIR@_SCANNERFLAGS = $(WARN_SCANNERFLAGS) --warn-all --warn-error
+@META_GIR@_SCANNERFLAGS = $(WARN_SCANNERFLAGS) --warn-all
- Fix build process
add:
override_dh_shlibdeps:
dh_shlibdeps --dpkg-shlibdeps-params=--ignore-missing-info
to the file debian/rules.
(note that line 2 must be indented by a TAB not spaces) see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11238134/dpkg-shlibdeps-error-no-dependency-information-found-for/14992359#14992359
No idea, why cinnamon depends on gnome-panel and mate-panel. The icon theme isn't available in Ubuntu, so that dependency has to die as well.
Edit cinnamon/debian/control and remove dependencies for:
- gnome-panel
- mate-panel
- tint2
- gnome-icon-theme-symbolic