Arch Linux

Axejob

Member

Registered: 2019-06-06

Posts: 2

[Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

I'm trying to make my first open source contribution and have made a patch for pacman, unfortunately I'm a beginner and don't know how to test it without overwriting the normal pacman installation.

Using the '--prefix' and 'DESTDIR' options with the configure and make install scripts does install everything in the chosen folder, but running the binary in installDir/usr/local/bin/pacman just returns

 error: config file /usr/local/etc/pacman.conf could not be read: No such file or directory 

How do people normally test their compiled code without ruining the system?

Last edited by Axejob (2019-06-08 01:18:52)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,530

Website

Re: [Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

You shouldn't need to install it at all to test it.  Just compile it (without any special prefix options) and run it from where it is.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,673

Website

Re: [Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

In the git source directory:

./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --enable-doc --enable-git-version --enable-debug --enable-warningflags
make
./src/pacman/pacman -Syu

---

PGP Key: F99FFE0FEAE999BD | I develop pacman - buy me a drink!

Axejob

Member

Registered: 2019-06-06

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

In the git source directory:

./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --enable-doc --enable-git-version --enable-debug --enable-warningflags
make
./src/pacman/pacman -Syu

Thanks for the answer, it works. My patch on the other hand...

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,322

Re: [Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

If the patch is in libalpm, maybe you have to specify its location with LD_LIBRARY_PATH when running your freshly built pacman?

---

| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' | alias ENGLISH='LANG=C.UTF-8 ' |

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,673

Website

Re: [Solved] Compiling and installing pacman to a custom dir

If the patch is in libalpm, maybe you have to specify its location with LD_LIBRARY_PATH when running your freshly built pacman?

No.  The path I gave is actually a wrapper script that handles all that.

---

PGP Key: F99FFE0FEAE999BD | I develop pacman - buy me a drink!