Use Case - Package something that uses 'make install'

This requires your 'make install' obey DESTDIR or otherwise allows you to install to a specific target directory.

In this example, I will make 3 node packages from nodejs: nodejs, nodejs-dev, and nodejs-doc

Package up the nodejs runtime

Normal build steps.

# Normal build steps.
% wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.0/node-v0.6.0.tar.gz
% tar -zxf node-v0.6.0.tar.gz
% cd node-v0.6.0
% ./configure --prefix=/usr
% make

Now install it.

# Install to a separate directory for capture.
% mkdir /tmp/installdir
% make install DESTDIR=/tmp/installdir

Now make the 'nodejs' package

# Create a nodejs deb with only bin and lib directories:
# The 'VERSION' and 'ARCH' strings are automatically filled in for you
# based on the other arguments given.
% fpm -s dir -t deb -n nodejs -v 0.6.0 -C /tmp/installdir \
  -p nodejs_VERSION_ARCH.deb \
  -d "libssl0.9.8 > 0" \
  -d "libstdc++6 >= 4.4.3" \
  usr/bin usr/lib

Install the package, test it out:

# 'fpm' just produced us a nodejs deb:
% file nodejs_0.6.0-1_amd64.deb
nodejs_0.6.0-1_amd64.deb: Debian binary package (format 2.0)
% sudo dpkg -i nodejs_0.6.0-1_amd64.deb 

% /usr/bin/node --version
v0.6.0

Package up the manpages (create nodejs-doc)

# Create a package of the node manpage
% fpm -s dir -t deb -p nodejs-doc_VERSION_ARCH.deb -n nodejs-doc -v 0.6.0 -C /tmp/installdir usr/share/man

Look in the nodejs-doc package:

% dpkg -c nodejs-doc_0.6.0-1_amd64.deb| grep node.1
-rw-r--r-- root/root       945 2011-01-02 18:35 usr/share/man/man1/node.1

Now create the -dev package:

% fpm -s dir -t deb -p nodejs-dev_VERSION_ARCH.deb -n nodejs-dev -v 0.6.0 -C /tmp/installdir usr/include  
% dpkg -c nodejs-dev_0.6.0-1_amd64.deb | grep -F .h 
-rw-r--r-- root/root     14359 2011-01-02 18:33 usr/include/node/eio.h
-rw-r--r-- root/root      1118 2011-01-02 18:33 usr/include/node/node_version.h
-rw-r--r-- root/root     25318 2011-01-02 18:33 usr/include/node/ev.h
...

Voila.