If you use Debian's PHP packages it makes sense to install additional packages from PECL and PEAR as Debian packages as well.
Here is how to create such a package. We will install the runkit extension which is needed for some of DokuWiki's Unit Tests.
#> apt-get install dh-make-php php4-pear php4-dev php5-dev fakeroot
First get the sources with pear download:
$> pear download runkit File runkit-0.7.tgz downloaded (41683 bytes)
Now use dh-make-pecl to unpack and create the directory structure needed for the Debian build tools. The options defines the maintainer set in the package description.
$> dh-make-pecl --maintainer 'Andreas Gohr <andi@splitbrain.org>' runkit-0.7.tgz
If you want you can modify the package description in php-runkit-0.7/debian/control befor building the package.
$> cd php-runkit-0.7 $> dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot $> cd ..
You now have a Debian Package for your extension.
For the lazy people the packages of runkit 0.7 are available here.