6.7.5. Architecture-independent data

It is not uncommon to have a large amount of architecture-independent data packaged with a program. For example, audio files, a collection of icons, wallpaper patterns, or other graphic files. If the size of this data is negligible compared to the size of the rest of the package, it’s probably best to keep it all in a single package.

However, if the size of the data is considerable, consider splitting it out into a separate, architecture-independent package (_all.deb). By doing this, you avoid needless duplication of the same data into ten or more .debs, one per each architecture. While this adds some extra overhead into the Packages files, it saves a lot of disk space on Debian mirrors. Separating out architecture-independent data also reduces processing time of lintian (see Package lint tools) when run over the entire Debian archive.