Package Management
- Installing Software
- Updating
- Removing
- Managing Alien Packages
Subsections of Package Management
Installing Software
Subsections of Installing Software
Compiling from source
Introduction
With Compile, GoboLinux build utility, software sources can be downloaded, compiled and installed in a single step. An example will follow next.
In order to install irssi, a text-based IRC client from the command line, you would type the following instruction:
Depending on the speed of your computer, internet connection and what packages you have installed, Irssi should download and install in a few minutes.
Compile manages the build process using GoboLinux recipes. Each recipe contains a list of build directives and supplemental control files for compiling a particular software library.
Finding recipes
Typically, you can just try the name of the recipe you want from the command line. There is also an online recipe viewer, listing the most recently uploaded recipes first.
Command-line options
Compile has a number of command-line options, which are listed here. The following are especially useful.
When using the --batch or -b automatically attempts to process all
dependencies of the requested program.
Separating download and compile phases
The next two options are useful when working with intermittent internet access, or if you’d like to run your compiling jobs at night when you’re asleep.
Calling Compile with the --no-build flag downloads sources only.
Later, in the event that you wish to use the --no-web flag, this will direct
Compile to search to your system’s own download cache and build the sources
found there instead. This commandline switch is obviously very useful if you do
not have a working internet connection for the time being.
Writing recipes
Main article: Writing recipes
Getting the latest Compile
To use the version of Compile, run
Installing binary packages
We do not maintain a binary package repository at this time!
Please build your packages from source using Compile!
Binary packages in GoboLinux are precompiled software packages built for the GoboLinux directory tree and made available through the GoboLinux software repository (recipe store). Since these packages are already compiled, you can save the many hours needed to build larger applications. On the other hand, with binary packages you don’t have the ability to set compile flags for optimization or specific architectures.
Installing packages
InstallPackage is the GoboLinux script for
installing binary packages. If you want
InstallPackage to look for the most recent Gimp
package available, you can run
The script will check if the package is available in the GoboLinux repositories.
(See /System/Settings/GetAvailable.conf for the specific URLs scanned. You may
add your own repositories if you desire.)
If you want to select a specific version, you can pass it as the second parameter:
If you downloaded the package and want to install it, run:
The script normally runs interactively, asking about each dependency of the
requested package before installing it. You can avoid these queries by adding
the --batch or -b flag. This is particularly useful with large packages such
as Gimp or Xorg, which have many dependencies.
Dependencies
InstallPackage will warn you if dependencies of a package you are trying to
install are unavailable and ask if you want to continue. This is valuable,
because some software may still work satisfactorily even if a particular plug-in
or other dependency is missing.
Installing packages from the LiveCD
See Installing Packages from the LiveCD.
Removing packages
See Removing programs.
Updating Programs
Overview
Use the UpdateRecipes command to refresh your
local cache of the GoboLinux recipe store.
You can query available updates using the utilities
SuggestUpdates and
SuggestDuplicates. The output of each of
these commands is suitable for piping into commands.
The FindPackage and
GetAvailable commands may also be useful.
Example Update Process
Keep in mind that most operations that change the file-system state in Gobo require super user privileges:
Ensure that Scripts are up to date
Ensure that Compile is up to date
UpdateRecipes - Update local copy of recipe store
SuggestUpdates - List packages with an update available
Install updates
Currently, there is no way to update packages automatically. This used to be
done with the Freshen script, which is currently not
in working order.
Updates thus need to be installed manually via
InstallPackage or
Compile as appropriate.
Removing Programs
In GoboLinux, all programs, whether binary packages or user-compiled software,
are installed into a single directory under the /Programs hierarchy, such as,
for instance, gimp:
Removing this program can be, in theory, as simple as:
But since this leaves behind dangling symlinks, GoboLinux offers the
RemoveProgram utility, which removes the program
and all links pointing to its files in /System/Index.
Sometimes you may want to “turn off” a program temporarily, without erasing it from your hard disk. In other words, you want to remove program’s executables from the execution path, and remove libraries and headers from the lookup path.
In GoboLinux, this can be accomplished by removing the associated symlinks for
/System/Index. The DisableProgram script facilitates this:
The version parameter given here, in this case 3.2.2, is optional. If it is
not provided, the Current link is used to determine the program version to
disable. Also note that the program name is case insensitive, but it appears to
be simpler to use a downcased variant - easier to type at the least.
DisableProgram automatically appends a -Disabled tag to the version name,
so in our case folder 3.2.2 has been renamed to 3.2.2-Disabled. This way,
you can easily distinuish disabled from enabled programs via the file system
alone.
To re-enable the program, all you need to do is recreate the symbolic links:
Maintaining symlinks
GoboLinux has a script called RemoveBroken. that
removes dangling symlinks from /System/Index tree. It can be useful to run
after manipulating directories under /Programs.
RemoveBroken takes a list of files, and removes
those that are dangling symlinks. If no arguments are provided, the script takes
filenames from standard input (typically through a pipe).
The usual procedure to clean up dangling links, is
Info
GoboLinux actually performs this task automatically on any file system changes inside
/System/Index. This is done via a Listener
hook. Check out it’s configuration file at /System/Settings/listener.conf for more insight.
Managing Alien Packages
Introduction
For an introduction to Alien packages please refer to Alien Packaging Subsystem.
How to install and update Alien packages
In order to install a foreign package we can use the following syntax:
For instance, in order to install or update meson you would type: