Here are instructions on how to build the brave-browser Linux packages during development.
If building in a virtual machine, make sure you don't build as root or the npm run init might fail.
Once you've installed the pre-requisites and cloned the repo, the build command to use is:
npm run create_dist -- Release
In particular, make sure you don't specify --official_build=false or your build might fail (see #305).
Once the build is done, you'll find the .deb and .rpm directly in src/out/Release/.
To build beta or dev packages, use the --channel argument:
npm run create_dist -- Release --channel=beta