---
name: "debhelper-obsolete-compat"
section: "7"
platform: "linux"
package: "debhelper"
version: "13.24.2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/debhelper-obsolete-compat"
---

# debhelper-obsolete-compat(7)

List of no longer supported compat levels

## NAME

debhelper-obsolete-compat - List of no longer supported compat levels

## SYNOPSIS

This document contains the upgrade guidelines from all compat levels which are no longer supported.  Accordingly it is mostly for historical purposes and to assist people upgrading from a non-supported compat level to a supported level.

For upgrades from supported compat levels, please see [**debhelper**(7)](/debhelper/7.md).

## UPGRADE LIST FOR COMPAT LEVELS

The following is the list of now obsolete compat levels and their changes.

- v7

  This is the lowest supported compatibility level.

  Changes from v6 are:

  - \-

    **dh\_install**, will fall back to looking for files in *debian/tmp* if it doesn't find them in the current directory (or wherever you tell it look using **--sourcedir**). This allows **dh\_install** to interoperate with **dh\_auto\_install**, which installs to *debian/tmp*, without needing any special parameters.

  - \-

    **dh\_clean** will read *debian/clean* and delete files listed there.

  - \-

    **dh\_clean** will delete toplevel *\*-stamp* files.

  - \-

    **dh\_installchangelogs** will guess at what file is the upstream changelog if none is specified.

- v6

  Changes from v5 are:

  - \-

    Commands that generate maintainer script fragments will order the fragments in reverse order for the *prerm* and *postrm* scripts.

  - \-

    **dh\_installwm** will install a slave manpage link for *x-window-manager.1.gz*, if it sees the man page in *usr/share/man/man1* in the package build directory.

  - \-

    **dh\_builddeb** did not previously delete everything matching **DH\_ALWAYS\_EXCLUDE**, if it was set to a list of things to exclude, such as **CVS:.svn:.git**. Now it does.

  - \-

    **dh\_installman** allows overwriting existing man pages in the package build directory. In previous compatibility levels it silently refuses to do this.

  This mode is deprecated.

- v5

  Changes from v4 are:

  - \-

    Comments are ignored in debhelper config files.

  - \-

    **dh\_strip --dbg-package** now specifies the name of a package to put debugging symbols in, not the packages to take the symbols from.

  - \-

    **dh\_installdocs** skips installing empty files.

  - \-

    **dh\_install** errors out if wildcards expand to nothing.

- v4

  Changes from v3 are:

  - \-

    **dh\_makeshlibs -V** will not include the Debian part of the version number in the generated dependency line in the shlibs file.

  - \-

    You are encouraged to put the new **${misc:Depends}** into *debian/control* to supplement the **${shlibs:Depends}** field.

  - \-

    **dh\_fixperms** will make all files in *bin/* directories and in *etc/init.d* executable.

  - \-

    **dh\_link** will correct existing links to conform with policy.

  This mode is deprecated.

- v3

  This mode works like v2, with the following additions:

  - \-

    Debhelper config files support globbing via **\*** and **?**, when appropriate. To turn this off and use those characters raw, just prefix with a backslash.

  - \-

    **dh\_makeshlibs** makes the *postinst* and *postrm* scripts call **ldconfig**.

  - \-

    Every file in *etc/* is automatically flagged as a conffile by **dh\_installdeb**.

  This mode is deprecated.

- v2

  In this mode, debhelper will consistently use debian/*package* as the package tree directory for every package that is built.

  This mode is deprecated.

- v1

  This is the original debhelper compatibility level, and so it is the default one. In this mode, debhelper will use *debian/tmp* as the package tree directory for the first binary package listed in the control file, while using debian/*package* for all other packages listed in the *control* file.

  This mode is deprecated.

## SEE ALSO

[**debhelper**(7)](/debhelper/7.md)

## AUTHORS

Niels Thykier \<niels@thykier.net\>

Joey Hess