How to run parallel make with debuild?

Question

I am trying to make a package of a piece of software that I've (co-) written. I'm using

debuild -i -us -uc -b

And in principle that works fine. In order to shorten compilation time I'd like to debuild to run make in parallel (like I normally do by running make -j4, for example). I've found a few locations on the web that suggest the following:

debuild -eDEB_BUILD_OPTIONS="parallel=4" -us -uc -b
debuild -j4 -us -uc -b

Another site suggested to add some code to the debian/rules file that basically sets

MAKEFLAGS += -j4

However, none of these seems to work. Have I missed something? or should I change something in the autoconf/automake settings of the source?

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 05 '13 at 00:53

20

It has to be enabled in debian/rules. If the package uses dh, there is a line like this in debian/rules:

dh $@

Change that to

dh $@ --parallel

Then your commands will work, at least DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS="parallel=4"

answered Oct 05 '13 at 00:53

gggf

216
2
3

5

Just remember to export `DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS` to make all the tools happy. – rbrito Jul 25 '17 at 03:14
4

The `--parallel` option is no longer needed, just set the environment variable. – gps May 19 '19 at 21:39

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 10 '18 at 20:24

11

I recommend using the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS environment variable, as described in section 4.9.1 of the Debian Policy Manual.

DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='parallel=4' debuild -i -us -uc -b

edited Aug 10 '18 at 20:24

Spooky

109
5

answered Mar 17 '18 at 07:45

Manuel

211
2
2

BTW, this env variable doesn't work for `dpkg-buildpackage` command. It has its own option `-j=4` which works. But equal sign `=` is important. – Vasily Ryabov Oct 18 '21 at 15:07

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 25 '17 at 04:27

10

With debhelper 10, you no longer need to supply the --parallel option in debian/rules; it now runs parallel builds by default. See the release notes

The answer, is therefore, just to set the contents of debian/compat to 10 and to update the debhelper version to >=10 in debian/control.

edited Jul 25 '17 at 04:27

rbrito

339
3
11

answered Jan 08 '17 at 17:54

Alex Valavanis

323
2
9

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 09 '22 at 10:45

0

To sum-up all the above, that worked for me:

export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='parallel=16'
fakeroot debian/rules binary

answered Sep 09 '22 at 10:45

midenok

752
1
7
13

How to run parallel make with debuild?

4 Answers4

Linked