Creating a Debian package is actually pretty straight forward:

1. download upstream tarball.

2. execute dh_make -f <path-to-tarball>

3. debuild -us -uc -b

That is it! There is no secret.

dh_make does the heavy lift of generating everything you need.

Your only job is to declare the dependencies (build and runtime ones) inside the "control" file, maybe change the "rules" file (it is a Makefile).

There are also several helpers that goes even further and automate 99% of the process.

I've been using Debian for 20 years and have never seen this advice. I currently use custom scripts for building local packages of things.

I think this comes down to Debian's weak documentation. The recommended intro guide from the wiki page [1] doesn't say this and looking through the maintainers guide I do see this [2] in there but it is buried in pages and pages of other docs.

Really, someone needs to write a new basic intro that doesn't bury the lede. It should start with this then expand on what to do for various issues.

Or maybe start with one of those 99% automation options. If they are even easier. As is you cannot find this information without some person telling you as you cannot find it by searching for it or reading the docs.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Packaging/Intro

[2] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/first.en.html...