> ...I remember reading the docs on how to create .deb bundles a couple years ago, and the impression I got was that it had a somewhat steep learning curve
Checkinstall makes building debs pretty easy if you're using make to build the app.
checkinstall installs the software in order to build the .deb, so it is sort of dangerous in that regard. It would not keep your home dir safe. I would recommend running it in a virtual machine.
Building .debs is not all that difficult, just sort of an archaic and not particularly well-documented process. fpm (Ruby Gem) is worth looking into if you want a quick'n'dirty way to create packages.
Checkinstall makes building debs pretty easy if you're using make to build the app.
https://www.debian-administration.org/article/147/Installing...