Pros and cons of making packages?

occam · 2006-04-13 04:07:40

When one of your favorite applications is not available in Arch, the solution is of course to get the source cose and -- well, either just configure-make-make install, or make a 'proper' Arch package and install that.
What are the advantages, disadvantages and plain problems with the two methods?
I am asking this in this Newbie forum, because in the "Making Packages" forum mostly those who prefer, and know how to, make packages would see it; but I am asking from an Arch newbie's perspective.
I have been using Unix a long time ago, and Linux (mostly Slackware) for 5+ years so CLI is ok with me.

tyme · 2006-04-13 04:12:31

if you want to share it with other users (which is a good idea open source ideals and all that) make a pkgbuild. post it here. maybe submit it to the aur.

if you're just building it for yourself...compile from source code.

viniosity · 2006-04-13 04:38:31

Some of the advantages to the Arch way:

1. If you need to remove the package you can do it will pacman. Meaning that you can also do a pacman -Rs foo to remove the package you created along with any dependencies whether you created it or not.

2. If you need to upgrade the package and your pkgbuild is working, then you frequently just need to change the MD5 and version number and rerun the makepkg letting arch do the rest.

3. Since you install a pkg with pacman, all the other good stuff applies too. That means if the package is eventually put into the current/extra/community repos and a newer version becomes available then when you pacman -Syu your version will get automatically upgraded. (this just happened to me with some dependencies for gnucash!)

4. As tyme stated, you can post your package to the AUR and help others get that package too.

I'm sure there are others too..

McQueen · 2006-04-13 04:38:48

occam wrote:

What are the advantages, disadvantages and plain problems with the two methods?

A big advantage with using a pkgbuild is that you can easily upgrade when a new version comes out by simply altering the version info. In addition, (perhaps more importantly) you have a superior method of package removal, and there is a clear path to update any included dependencies if those are required.

Such is my experience anyway.

occam · 2006-04-13 06:34:40

Ok - I did make a package with some trivial difficulties. Getting pacman to see it was worse; I had to resort to
pacman -A /sw/archies/tellico-1.1.4-1
before pacman deigned to install it.
I did edit pacman.conf to have a [custom] server file:///sw/archies - but pacman did not see/use it.

Wonder where I went wrong?

PS the application, tellico, is up and running ok now.

pressh · 2006-04-13 08:08:35

Check 'man pacman' on how to create a local repository.
It is at the end of the man page.

tomk · 2006-04-13 08:21:00

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but tellico is already in the AUR.

occam wrote:

I had to resort to
pacman -A /sw/archies/tellico-1.1.4-1

Resort to - does that mean "use one of the many well-documented options described in the pacman man page"?

There's also a wiki page on local repo setup.

occam · 2006-04-13 13:16:59

I tried Arch early last year. It all crashed when I was incautious enough to uncomment the 'testing' (or was it 'unstable'?) repo. I want to avoid that this time. So I will just read the PKGBUILD files in AUR and modify them if needed; now that I have found that I CAN actually write a PKGBUILD file on my own.

Resort to - by this I mean having to use a detailed command instead of just "pacman -S tellico".

I was unaware of the gensync command - thanks for the pointer.

tomk · 2006-04-13 16:08:46

Sorry - I forgot to use the <irony> tags.

I know what you meant - I just consider pacman -A, pacman -U, and pacman -S all equally usable, whereas your post gave the impression that using pacman -A was some kind of inconvenience.

phrakture · 2006-04-13 17:48:18

Nicely offtopic:
pacman -A and -U support URLs, which is a real nice feature.

pacman -U http://my.host.com/packages/foo-1.2.3-1.pkg.tar.gz

Arch Linux

#1 2006-04-13 04:07:40

Pros and cons of making packages?

#2 2006-04-13 04:12:31

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#3 2006-04-13 04:38:31

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#4 2006-04-13 04:38:48

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#5 2006-04-13 06:34:40

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#6 2006-04-13 08:08:35

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#7 2006-04-13 08:21:00

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#8 2006-04-13 13:16:59

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#9 2006-04-13 16:08:46

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

#10 2006-04-13 17:48:18

Re: Pros and cons of making packages?

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