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+Debhelper is a collection of programs that can be used in debian/rules files
+to automate common tasks. For further documentation, see the man pages for
+dh_* commands.
+
+To help you get started, I've included examples of debian/rules files
+that use debhelper commands extensively. See /usr/doc/debhelper/examples/ . 
+These files are also useful as they give one good order you can run the 
+various debhelper scripts in (though other variations are possible).
+
+Starting a new package:
+----------------------
+
+You can just use the example rules files and do the rest of the new package
+set up by hand, or you could try the new dh-make package, which contains a
+"dh_make" command that is similar to debmake, and tries to automate the
+process.
+
+Converting from debstd to debhelper:
+-----------------------------------
+
+See the file "from-debstd" for documentation on how to do this.
+
+Automatic generation of debian install scripts:
+----------------------------------------------
+
+Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of debian install
+scripts. If you want these automatically generated things included in your
+debian install scripts, then you need to add "#DEBHELPER#" to your scripts,
+in the place the code should be added. "#DEBHELPER#" will be replaced by any 
+auto-generated code when you run dh_installdeb.
+
+All scripts that automatically generate code in this way let it be disabled
+by the -n parameter.
+
+Note that it will be shell code, so you cannot directly use it in a perl 
+script. If you would like to embed it into a perl script, here is one way to
+do that:
+
+print << `EOF`
+#DEBHELPER#
+EOF
+
+
+Notes on multiple binary packages:
+---------------------------------
+
+If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
+programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
+source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
+another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
+because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
+binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
+in the binary-indep debian/rules target.
+
+To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
+are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the
+following parameters:
+
+-a		Act on architecture dependent packages
+-i		Act on architecture independent packages
+-ppackage	Act on the package named "package" (may be repeated multiple
+		times)
+
+These parameters are cumulative. If none are given, the tools default to
+affecting all packages.
+
+See examples/rules.multi for an example of how to use this.
+
+Package build directories -- debian/tmp, etc:
+--------------------------------------------
+
+By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
+for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/tmp for the first
+package listed in debian/control, and debian/<packagename> for each
+additional package.
+
+Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
+supported by the -P flag. The directory to use is specified after -P, for
+example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will use debian/tmp as the temporary
+directory. Note that if you use -P, the debhelper programs can only be
+acting on a single package at a time. So if you have a package that builds
+many binary packages, you will need to use the -p flag to specify which
+binary package the debhelper program will act on. For example:
+
+	dh_installdocs -pfoolib1 -Pdebian/tmp-foolib1
+	dh_installdocs -pfoolib1-dev -Pdebian/tmp-foolib1-dev
+	dh_installdocs -pfoolib-bin -Pdebian/tmp-foolib-bin
+
+This uses debian/tmp-<package> as the package build directory.
+
+Other notes:
+-----------
+
+* In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
+  debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
+  man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/tmp/DEBIAN/
+  before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
+  debian/tmp/usr/lib/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
+
+-- Joey Hess <joeyh@master.debian.org>