Create a DEB package with shared lib dependency and without requiring autoconf

Question

I have a C++ project that I would to make available on launchpad.
I have tried to follow every tutorial on the net on how to create a Debian package and they all assume that I have autoconf set up.

The problem is I'm not using autoconf. I do have a custom makefile and I absolutely do not want to use autoconf.
At the same time, this project depends on the Boost libraries and I want to be able to run their own installation script before my own project is compiled.

So my question is how do I accomplish that? Create a Debian package that depends on Boost >= 1.67 without using autoconf.

Kindly note that on my version of Ubuntu (16.04 LTS), the latest version of Boost present with APT is 1.58 and I need 1.67 so I can't just set the existing Boost library as a dependency in the debian/control file.

Answer 1

To customize the build steps, specify them in the "rules" file. The defaults should work fine and just call make. Use override_dh_auto_configure, override_dh_auto_build, etc to fix steps that don't do what's expected.

As for boost version, that's an explorative process of working around the system.