How to make a tool/package available via apt-get install x for ubuntu?

Swift lang, for example, isn't available as apt-get -y install swift or any variant of name. I had to install it on the 24.04 ubuntu in Docker like this:

RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install binutils
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install git
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install unzip
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install gnupg2
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libc6-dev
# RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libcurl4-openssl-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libedit2
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libgcc-11-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libpython3-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libsqlite3-0
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libstdc++-11-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libxml2-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install libz3-dev
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install pkg-config
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install python3-lldb
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install tzdata
RUN export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true && apt-get -q -y install zlib1g-dev
RUN rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Install swift
ARG SWIFT_SIGNING_KEY=A62AE125BBBFBB96A6E042EC925CC1CCED3D1561
ARG SWIFT_PLATFORM=ubuntu22.04
ARG SWIFT_BRANCH=swift-5.9.2-release
ARG SWIFT_VERSION=swift-5.9.2-RELEASE
ARG SWIFT_WEBROOT=https://download.swift.org

ENV SWIFT_SIGNING_KEY=$SWIFT_SIGNING_KEY \
    SWIFT_PLATFORM=$SWIFT_PLATFORM \
    SWIFT_BRANCH=$SWIFT_BRANCH \
    SWIFT_VERSION=$SWIFT_VERSION \
    SWIFT_WEBROOT=$SWIFT_WEBROOT

RUN set -e; \
    ARCH_NAME="$(dpkg --print-architecture)"; \
    url=; \
    case "${ARCH_NAME##*-}" in \
        'amd64') \
            OS_ARCH_SUFFIX=''; \
            ;; \
        'arm64') \
            OS_ARCH_SUFFIX='-aarch64'; \
            ;; \
        *) echo >&2 "error: unsupported architecture: '$ARCH_NAME'"; exit 1 ;; \
    esac; \
    SWIFT_WEBDIR="$SWIFT_WEBROOT/$SWIFT_BRANCH/$(echo $SWIFT_PLATFORM | tr -d .)$OS_ARCH_SUFFIX" \
    && SWIFT_BIN_URL="$SWIFT_WEBDIR/$SWIFT_VERSION/$SWIFT_VERSION-$SWIFT_PLATFORM$OS_ARCH_SUFFIX.tar.gz" \
    && SWIFT_SIG_URL="$SWIFT_BIN_URL.sig" \
    # - Grab curl here so we cache better up above
    && export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    && apt-get -q update && apt-get -q install -y curl && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* \
    # - Download the GPG keys, Swift toolchain, and toolchain signature, and verify.
    && export GNUPGHOME="$(mktemp -d)" \
    && curl -fsSL "$SWIFT_BIN_URL" -o swift.tar.gz "$SWIFT_SIG_URL" -o swift.tar.gz.sig \
    && gpg --batch --quiet --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys "$SWIFT_SIGNING_KEY" \
    && gpg --batch --verify swift.tar.gz.sig swift.tar.gz \
    # - Unpack the toolchain, set libs permissions, and clean up.
    && tar -xzf swift.tar.gz --directory / --strip-components=1 \
    && chmod -R o+r /usr/lib/swift \
    && rm -rf "$GNUPGHOME" swift.tar.gz.sig swift.tar.gz \
    && apt-get purge --auto-remove -y curl

It works fine. Is there a way to publish it to the ubuntu package system so it works like apt-get -y install swiftlang or somethiing like that apt-get install myswiftlang?

Wondering in general how to publish packages to ubuntu package system, and using this swift case as one small specific example.

P.S. if it's not allowed/recommended to do this, why not? In that case, wondering why it's not as easy to publish a package as Node.js's npm.

Solution

Short answer is yes - it's absolutely possible, but there's a lot of work involved. The general pattern would be to make a Debian package and get it included in Ubuntu's package repositories - or the same process, but upstream in Debian's repositories.

Neil Jones did a lot of this unpaid - and mostly thankless - legwork for a number of years, managing a community repository, but that public/community package repository is no longer available.

The swift community is actively evolving another tool to make it easier to get Swift installed on Linux (and other platforms down the road) - swiftly - but that's not at all the same process as aligning things up to get the packages made and hosted for a variety of platforms in their native packaging solutions (RPM/Yum or Deb).