Packaging Concept and Adaptation

vikrang · 2011-02-03 04:57:47

Please excuse me as I am a total newbie

Lately , I have been trying various distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch,Chakra, Slack etc

One interesting feature is the package handling by all these distros...

From a lay man's perspective, I just have a simple question - Is it possible to adapt one distro's package and convert to another ? Does Packaging reqiure good knowledge of bash and Python or anyone who knows the structure can sort of copy paste the relevant areas..

To take the example , assume there is a package "Homebank" which is not in the arch repos (just for example sake!)

There are source tar balls and instructions for installation ,

Suppose i start creating PKGBUILD , I am able to fill out the general areas like pkgname, ver, maintainer till Md5 Checksum....Then comes the hard part (If you are a newbie that is!) ...There is a build function telling pacman what to do --These are the core commands and rest mostly for Info purposes...

Can I copy paste this area alone from some other distro to PKGBUILD ?? Are these like uniform for all distros? I mean will it work out?

I am asking purely from the point of using PKGBUILD and create txz files...

Are there any utilities for helping achieve the above?

Mostly all the packages are available and you can easily install thru ABS ...But assume a scenario where a package is not avilable anywhere and has to be built from scratch

Second part - pardus 2011 looks to be very good and sort of fresh...But there is lack of good repos...I read that python is used for packaging...Similart porting is adapted wherein 3 files are required - pspec.xml, action.py and source files, (similar to PKGBUILD,tar.gz and install) to build a PiSi package...Put it simply can I copy paste the relevant areas from PKG BUILD and create a PiSi package....

Last edited by vikrang (2011-02-03 05:04:08)

chris-kun · 2011-02-03 05:18:39

vikrang wrote:

...Can I copy paste this area alone from some other distro to PKGBUILD ?? Are these like uniform for all distros? I mean will it work out?

Eh... there's not really a solid "rule" you can always be sure to follow. Some packages might work just fine, others might not. I believe there are some utilities to do with pkgbuilds (check the community contributions forum) but I don't believe they really make the process easier if you don't already know what you're doing.

Arch does have a forum where you can request a certain pkgbuild and hopefully (and usually!) someone will be nice enough to port it over for you

Last edited by chris-kun (2011-02-03 05:20:09)

karol · 2011-02-03 06:28:18

chris-kun wrote:

Arch does have a forum where you can request a certain pkgbuild and hopefully (and usually!) someone will be nice enough to port it over for you

But you will get an AchLinux package / PKGBUILD. If you want one for pardus, this is a wrong forum.

chris-kun · 2011-02-03 07:05:05

yeah karol is right.. just thought it was slightly relevent to the OP

skodabenz · 2011-02-03 07:10:51

It depends on which distro's package you are trying to port. In case of fedora, it should be easy to copy-paste the commands from an rpm spec file to a PKGBUILD (i have done that before for one of my AUR packages). I don't know how debian rules files are written, and absolutely no experience with python. But still most of the softwares use standard install procedures like ./configure , make, make DESTDIR= install' so you shouldn't have problem writing PKGBUILDs.

Last edited by skodabenz (2011-02-03 07:11:15)

tomk · 2011-02-03 07:11:19

vikrang wrote:

There are source tar balls and instructions for installation

This is your starting point - not some other distro's interpretation.

vikrang · 2011-02-03 08:19:55

Well ..Thanks all of you .. Just got this in my mind when I was comparing Arch and Chakra....Basically Arch is Chakra's mother so no doubt the PKGBUILD is identical ..So I was wondering if I could extend this a bit to other distros as well! This would offer terrific choice and not to worry about the available packages in a distro's repo... In fact , I need not worry abt installing chakra as I have the wonderful arch repos behind me and I can copy , paste without any fuss!

Nevertheless I understand there are conceptual differences in the way the packages are structured...

Just wanted a shortcut.... But I guess this is not the "ARCH WAY" of doing things which I equally respect.

Last edited by vikrang (2011-02-03 08:28:26)

Inxsible · 2011-02-03 14:35:33

As tomk mentioned, the source of the "software" is your starting point. There are packages in AUR for Arch itself which have completely different PKGBUILDs.

so how you create the "build" function depends on two things :
1) how the source is supplied to you and also
2) where things need to be installed in the distro you are packaging it for. e.g we never recommend putting anything under /usr/local, whereas other distros use it all the time.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-03 04:57:47

Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#2 2011-02-03 05:18:39

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#3 2011-02-03 06:28:18

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#4 2011-02-03 07:05:05

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#5 2011-02-03 07:10:51

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#6 2011-02-03 07:11:19

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#7 2011-02-03 08:19:55

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

#8 2011-02-03 14:35:33

Re: Packaging Concept and Adaptation

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