[Ubuntu] PolSARpro packaging

[Antonio Valentino]

Hi list,
I'm trying to package PolSARpro (http://earth.esa.int/polsarpro), a SAR
polarimetry tool, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and
distributed under the GPL license.

I'm quite unexperienced in debian packaging so I would like to ask some
tip to people more skilled than me.

The main problem I encountered is that PolSARpro needs to be run from a
specific folder (the root folder of the SW distribution) and also needs
write permission on some configuration files that are expected to be
located inside the distribution tree. 

To overcome the issue I decided to write a small launch script that:
* creates a .polsarpro in the user HOME
* creates symbolic links to all required folders in $HOME/.polsarpro
* makes a copy of configuration files in $HOME/.polsarpro (if not
already present)
* finally runs the main application (a Tcl/Tk program) from within of
$HOME/.polsarpro

The application files (tcl scripts, binary executables, data files,
etc. stored with an unusual directory layout) are
in /usr/lib/polsarpro.

My question is: is this an acceptable approach for a debian package?

The alternative solution would be to write a large patch that fixes
almost all file paths in the tcl code and could potentially introduce
bugs hard to detect.


Thanks in advice

-- 
Antonio Valentino