This really quick and dirty way to create your own Debian or Ubuntu packages can be done by anyone with little previous package creation experience. Even if you've never even compiled an application, I'll show you just how easy it is to download source code, compile the program and bundle everything up in a .deb package you can share with anyone.

"Have you ever had to make a one-line correction (or customization) in a big package? If so how did you manage it? The obvious way is to rebuild a package and serve it locally, but is there some other approach? ..."

"... I am a full-time Debian user. Debian has plenty of really great sources of information and support — it’s been around a long time, it has many, many users, and no matter what problem I discover, it seems like 'they’ve seen it all before.' Debian looks great, it works great, and I couldn’t be happier. [...] However, what’s the fun in using Debian? I once installed some stuff on a Debian-server, with some help from a Howto, and everything just worked like it said in that Howto! ..."

Via thedebianuser: http://blog.thedebianuser.org/?p=282

"The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codename etch). In addition to correcting several security problems and a few serious defects in the stable release, for the first time in Debian's history an update for a stable distrubtion also adds support for newer hardware by giving users the option to install newer drivers..."

This is not a rant about Debian vs. Ubuntu. I used both, loved both, and I'm currently using Debian Lenny. It's not about Debian versus any other distribution either: in fact, I only tried a few other distros, and most of them were Debian-based. Here are the top 10 reasons for which I enjoy using Debian:

About a year ago now I made the best computing decision of my adult life. It was a cold and snowy evening at my apartment, and good-ole' XP was ready for its bi-yearly rebuild. It just seemed that every 6-8 months it would be dogging real badly, and the only true fix was to completely rebuild. I had been using command-line Linux for about 5 months but hadn't been comfortable enough to use it as a desktop yet. I had played in some older versions of Ubuntu, a Debian-based desktop OS, but always got discouraged and forgot about it. Since I was faced with a rebuild I decided to grow a pair and just take the plunge...

Have you ever wished you had access to your Linux distribution's online package repositories when you didn't have access to the Internet, or when your access was slow and unreliable?

"Each distribution has some specific tools to build a custom kernel from the sources. This article is about compiling a kernel on a Debian Etch system."

If you want to update all the packages other than one in your debian server follow this procedure...