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#1 2013-01-26 10:31:36

Osiris
Member
Registered: 2003-01-18
Posts: 153
Website

Package management for your home

Hello,

I'm working (as a user) on a network which is built on a kind of elderly OpenSuse. Since some packages I need/want are missing, some are outdated I've compiled and installed some in my $home. Though it works, it's a hassle to maintain.

I''m looking for some kind of distribution like system which allows installing and managing packages in your $home. When I install a package it checks if the dependencies are there and compiles/installs the necessary packages.

Is there something like that out there?

(it's not Arch related, but I use Arch on my home desktop, that's why I ask here)

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#2 2013-01-26 10:47:44

illusionist
Member
From: localhost
Registered: 2012-04-03
Posts: 498

Re: Package management for your home

ABS or PKGBUILD maybe ?


  Never argue with stupid people,They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.--Mark Twain
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#3 2013-01-26 12:00:59

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Package management for your home

I maintain the GNU Source Release Collection, which does precisely that but only for official GNU software. It's basically a set of BSD Ports-like build scripts written in Make, with 322 GNU packages at the moment (plus some GNOME and GNUstep). You can extend it pretty easily, if you like, to include new build scripts for non-GNU packages, levereging the framework that already exists. Particularly, if the package in question supports the usual "./configure && make install" approach, it's really simple to make a new script for it. While I don't officially support that, I'm of course happy to help.

Last edited by jakobcreutzfeldt (2013-01-26 12:02:30)

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#4 2013-01-26 16:00:28

Blµb
Member
Registered: 2008-02-10
Posts: 224

Re: Package management for your home

In theory you can use pacman's --root switch to install stuff to your $HOME - if you build packages from the regular PKGBUILDs (abs etc) (or if you get the binary packages in case they are work on that system) - then they'll end creating a whole filesystem tree in your home, so I recommend using something like `--root $HOME/opt` then you basically get files like $HOME/opt/usr/bin/python2
To use it all of course you have to adapt your $PATH and $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

So if that's what you're looking for, you can install pacman in your home and start building from ABS

The downside is that stuff will ultimately depend on kernel/filesystem/initscripts etc and put that into your $HOME as well if you don't write up your own PKGBUILDs... (or at least remove them from the depends=() array before building)


You know you're paranoid when you start thinking random letters while typing a password.
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#5 2013-01-27 20:11:15

Osiris
Member
Registered: 2003-01-18
Posts: 153
Website

Re: Package management for your home

Thanks for your replies!

I think using (abusing?) Arch tools is not the way to go here, too much effort to customize. The GSRC is limited to GNU software...

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#6 2013-02-03 20:03:29

Franek
Member
Registered: 2010-05-16
Posts: 100

Re: Package management for your home

I had been asking myself the very same question about half a year ago and tried several options, three of which I remember:

HAI (Home Arch Install), which promised/promises to be awesome, but I could not get it to work at the time.

Gentoo Prefix, a way to install a full Gentoo Linux directory structure into your home (read: lots of diskspace, lots of compilation time needed), except for the kernel. You can start the Gentoo environment by a start_gentoo_prefix (or something like that) script and install applications with portage/emerge.
→ This is what I ended up doing.

Rootless Gobolinux is supposed to do the same thing for Gobolinux. I could not get it to work, though.

EDIT: I just learned about Toast, which appears to be pretty awesome. I am going to try it out soon.

Last edited by Franek (2013-08-16 11:56:48)

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