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.