Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

jackmetal · 2005-07-16 21:07:54

I'm fairly new to Arch, been using it for a couple months and have really liked it. I've been using Linux since the early 90's though. I have a limited understanding of pacman, but I'm trying to figure it out (along with ABS - which I haven't started using at all yet, though I want to..) ;-)

My question:
I believe I can install additional packages (not in the repositories) by doing something like: pacman -A http://somehost.com/somefile.tar.gz
or by downloading it and then running the pacman -A on it..

Is that correct?

I'd like to use pacman to keep everything up to date (even progs that aren't in the repositories), but I don't even know where to start. The main thing that got me thinking about it was things like keeping up to date on Firefox and Thunderbird, etc... I know I can manually download them both and install them, but if I do that then pacman won't be able to update them in the future (or am I not understanding something)?

As always, thanks so much for your help.

Snowman · 2005-07-16 21:28:45

fullmetaljack wrote:

I'm fairly new to Arch, been using it for a couple months and have really liked it. I've been using Linux since the early 90's though. I have a limited understanding of pacman, but I'm trying to figure it out (along with ABS - which I haven't started using at all yet, though I want to..) ;-)

To start, you can read the man pages for pacman and makepkg. There's also info in the wiki. (which is currently not working for me right now)

fullmetaljack wrote:

My question:
I believe I can install additional packages (not in the repositories) by doing something like: pacman -A http://somehost.com/somefile.tar.gz
or by downloading it and then running the pacman -A on it..
Is that correct?

Yes. However, Arch's packages have the extension .pkg.tar.gz

fullmetaljack wrote:

I'd like to use pacman to keep everything up to date (even progs that aren't in the repositories), but I don't even know where to start. The main thing that got me thinking about it was things like keeping up to date on Firefox and Thunderbird, etc... I know I can manually download them both and install them, but if I do that then pacman won't be able to update them in the future (or am I not understanding something)?
As always, thanks so much for your help.

For that, you can run

# abs

as root. after look in /var/abs. The PKGBUILD files of all packages will be there. You can search for the PKGBUILD and change the version number and the md5sum. Then running makepkg and pacman -A pkgname-version.pkg.tar.gz will built and install it. Usually, that will work unless the PKGBUILD needs to be modified for the newer version.

T-Dawg · 2005-07-16 21:39:50

Your best off just waiting for newer packages to come through in abs. Arch is bleeding edge so the wait for a newly released program as an Arch package shouldn't take that long. If you do decide to make the upgrade yourself as Snowman suggested, I would recommend changing the package version to something very minor so you can insure the arch package will be installed when it comes out. Something like 1.4 ==> 1.4.0.0.1.

Take a look at the man pages for makepkg and maybe even gensync. Gensync will allow you to create your own local "repo" on your machine. It makes it easy to install and remove packages at will using a regular pacman -Sy <pkg> command then using pacman -U /complete/path/to/file.pkg.tar.gz method after you finish building a new one. Just make sure you don't include any packages that have the same package name as those in the repos, otherwise you'll experience corruption errors.

phrakture · 2005-07-17 18:08:38

what's going on?
"pacman -S firefox" will install firefox, no need to know the URL
"pacman -Syu" will keep everything up to date

oh, and "pacman --help" is probably a good idea.... sigh

jackmetal · 2005-07-17 19:03:31

phrakture wrote:

what's going on?
"pacman -S firefox" will install firefox, no need to know the URL
"pacman -Syu" will keep everything up to date
oh, and "pacman --help" is probably a good idea.... sigh

Yep, I've read all the man pages for pacman (numerous times) and started on the wiki, and read numerous posts on here; haven't gotten around to abs yet. ABS sounds like what I'm probably needing to read up on.

The main interest I have (thus the question), was how to keep packages 'not' in the repos (such as later Firefox/Thunderbird versions - and other software) up-to-date using pacman.

I know I can just install the packages myself, but I'm just trying to grasp pacman/abs in order to do some other things than just the standard repos.

Thanks anyway, I just thought some of the pacman/abs experts around here would be able to give me some useful advice. I'll figure it out though, I haven't been in the industry for 20 years for nothing. :-)

BTW: "pacman -S mozilla-firefox" would work better. ;-)

jackmetal · 2005-07-17 19:08:32

Penguin wrote:

Your best off just waiting for newer packages to come through in abs. Arch is bleeding edge so the wait for a newly released program as an Arch package shouldn't take that long.

You're definitely right 'overall', but what got me thinking about it was mainly when I noticed I was running Thunderbird version 1.0 which is 'very' old. ;-)

T-Dawg · 2005-07-17 21:08:03

fullmetaljack:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=101754#101754

phrakture · 2005-07-18 05:40:55

fullmetaljack wrote:

The main interest I have (thus the question), was how to keep packages 'not' in the repos (such as later Firefox/Thunderbird versions - and other software) up-to-date using pacman.

try srcpac - you config sed lines on stock PKGBUILDs and it will use abs to manually build packages....

jackmetal · 2005-07-18 21:28:01

phrakture wrote:

try srcpac - you config sed lines on stock PKGBUILDs and it will use abs to manually build packages....

Excellent, thanks for the suggestion.

I've been on a big implementation over the weekend, so I haven't had time to look it all over yet. I look forward to learning more about the package system in use here (pacman/abs)...

Thanks again for the info.

jackmetal · 2005-07-20 15:27:16

Thanks for the tips, guys.

This was exactly what I was looking for.. Now I have all of my updated software and additional packages created in my own repo for new system builds.

'brilliant'

Arch Linux

#1 2005-07-16 21:07:54

Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#2 2005-07-16 21:28:45

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#3 2005-07-16 21:39:50

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#4 2005-07-17 18:08:38

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#5 2005-07-17 19:03:31

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#6 2005-07-17 19:08:32

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#7 2005-07-17 21:08:03

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#8 2005-07-18 05:40:55

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#9 2005-07-18 21:28:01

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

#10 2005-07-20 15:27:16

Re: Using Pacman to install packages not in repositories?

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