captain-sensible
Well-Known Member
[This is going to be a work in progress, edited a few times since i need to re-run pkgbuild to get output and correct mistakes]
I used to be a Slackware user and the day I got my head around a SlackBuild script was when one of the core contributors put it to me succinctly and simply like this:
When a package isn’t available via pacman you can look into the AUR of Arch (Arch User Repository) which hosts additional packages which can be installed on Arch vanilla but which are not “official packages”.
I came across this page which lists GNU software - https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html
I shimmed down it and noted Moe ; thinking that might be a candidate for me to play with , using a PKGBUILD.
I found that it wasn’t available via pacman BUT that somebody has already submitted it to AUR. Never mind I decided to avoid looking at their approach since it would probably confuse me and see if I could come up with a minimal PKGBUILD script and get it working.
A requirement near the top of priorities is to understand what a recent release is called ; at what location it can be obtained from and how is that information going to be transferred to a pkgbuild script.
The blurb for Moe is at : https://www.gnu.org/software/moe/ and a source location at : http://mirror.koddos.net/gnu/moe/ So there is a recent release dated 2021-01-03 18:49 of only 87K and called moe-1.11.tar.lz
Now its best to follow experience and advice and the general consensus is to keep things tidy and in one place by having a directory called “abs” in your home directory. Inside abs will be placed sub directories with names of other software you might want to build.
This is the structure for me is this :
whats going to happen is that we are going to put a tailor made (for moe) PKGBUILD script in the directory called moe. We will use it to obtain our source code for moe and build a .zst file which can be installed using pacman.
Lets have a look at my basic script.
Lets break it down:
The software we are trying to get is a simple text editor; its called "moe" but as its constandly developed it can't be just called moe so has version control applied and also the source is compacted conveniently for download. in the script unless your used to bash , "pkgname" is actually a variable; an equivalence for a variable in php would be $pkgname. using the equals sign "=" the variable "pkgname" is given the value of "moe"
The next line mentioning the variable "pkgver" means what are they calling it on the repo ? well we know that , its "1.11". So the translation of :
is just moe-1.11.tar.lz
The reason for working this way is that its easier to manipulate stuff using variables , which if needed can have their values changed.
here i'm basically saying that this is the 9th build of the source in a an installable pkg. I made it 9 , so that i can distinguish from the official AUR package for moe and see if mine installs and works
thats the location where you can get the source for moe. if you click on the link listed in one of the first few paragraphs, shimmy down to moe-1.11.tar.lz mouse, right click , copy link you will see its the same as i have typed above .
Now the parts named "build" and "package" are functions ; what they basically do is carry out the traditional way of installing source code via , ./configure , make , make install.
The difference between as i see it between a SlackBuild script and the Arch way is that the program called "makepkg" which should be on your system is called from the slackbuild; whereas with Arch you have to call makepkg from in this case , the moe sub-directory , which is located in abs directory. When called makepkg will look for a pkgbuild script and use it, which is what i'm going to do now.
I open a terminal and change directory to /abs/moe I now run the command:
Here i evoke makepkg with the g flag; its going to download the source file, generate a checksum for the file and put that info back into the pkgbuild script and then run makepkg on the new pkgbuild script . My pkgbuild script now looks like :
If i look into the moe directory the contents are now:
So a package called moe-1.11-9-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst has been created ; lets install it :
When i ran that command i got the text in image pacman_u.png
i typed y and hit return key.
Now lets see if it installed and what we can find out.
To get info on moe (installed i run) :
The output i got is in the image pacman _Qi_moe
its shows
Version : 1.11-9
and also "unknown packager" - me. Thats definitely the package i created ; i know that because the official AUR is 1.11.1
Now lets see what was put where :
lets launch moe and see what it looks like (has to be done via a terminal via:
Here is an indication of the simplicity of the Arch package system. The package i created for moe was 1.11-9 I ran :
its a terminal based text editor- you can see Antonio Diaz , who is the creator bottom of text editor window
thats not only looks for updates for packages installed via pacman but also for packages created using a pkgbuild script and installed via pacman .After running yay i got:
its picking up that the package i created manually is ahead of AUR. Its so refreshing clear compared to Debian
I used to be a Slackware user and the day I got my head around a SlackBuild script was when one of the core contributors put it to me succinctly and simply like this:
I expect that there would be a common theme of approach to building packages manually with Arch- but lets see.
When a package isn’t available via pacman you can look into the AUR of Arch (Arch User Repository) which hosts additional packages which can be installed on Arch vanilla but which are not “official packages”.
I came across this page which lists GNU software - https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html
I shimmed down it and noted Moe ; thinking that might be a candidate for me to play with , using a PKGBUILD.
I found that it wasn’t available via pacman BUT that somebody has already submitted it to AUR. Never mind I decided to avoid looking at their approach since it would probably confuse me and see if I could come up with a minimal PKGBUILD script and get it working.
A requirement near the top of priorities is to understand what a recent release is called ; at what location it can be obtained from and how is that information going to be transferred to a pkgbuild script.
The blurb for Moe is at : https://www.gnu.org/software/moe/ and a source location at : http://mirror.koddos.net/gnu/moe/ So there is a recent release dated 2021-01-03 18:49 of only 87K and called moe-1.11.tar.lz
Now its best to follow experience and advice and the general consensus is to keep things tidy and in one place by having a directory called “abs” in your home directory. Inside abs will be placed sub directories with names of other software you might want to build.
This is the structure for me is this :
Code:
home
|
abs
├── gnurobots
├── latex2html
├── moe
└── sedwhats going to happen is that we are going to put a tailor made (for moe) PKGBUILD script in the directory called moe. We will use it to obtain our source code for moe and build a .zst file which can be installed using pacman.
Lets have a look at my basic script.
Code:
# R & D by andy brookes aka captain sensible
pkgname="moe"
pkgver=1.11
pkgrel=9
pkgdesc="Moe is a GNU, powerful but simple to use text editor \n Moe features multiple windows, unlimited undo redo, unlimited line length, global search and replace, and more. "
arch=("x86_64")
license=('GPL')
source=("http://mirror.koddos.net/gnu/moe/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.lz")
build() {
cd "$pkgname-${pkgver}"
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
}
package() {
cd "$pkgname-${pkgver}"
make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install
}Lets break it down:
The software we are trying to get is a simple text editor; its called "moe" but as its constandly developed it can't be just called moe so has version control applied and also the source is compacted conveniently for download. in the script unless your used to bash , "pkgname" is actually a variable; an equivalence for a variable in php would be $pkgname. using the equals sign "=" the variable "pkgname" is given the value of "moe"
The next line mentioning the variable "pkgver" means what are they calling it on the repo ? well we know that , its "1.11". So the translation of :
Code:
$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.lzis just moe-1.11.tar.lz
The reason for working this way is that its easier to manipulate stuff using variables , which if needed can have their values changed.
Code:
pkgrel=9here i'm basically saying that this is the 9th build of the source in a an installable pkg. I made it 9 , so that i can distinguish from the official AUR package for moe and see if mine installs and works
Code:
source=("http://mirror.koddos.net/gnu/moe/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.lz")thats the location where you can get the source for moe. if you click on the link listed in one of the first few paragraphs, shimmy down to moe-1.11.tar.lz mouse, right click , copy link you will see its the same as i have typed above .
Now the parts named "build" and "package" are functions ; what they basically do is carry out the traditional way of installing source code via , ./configure , make , make install.
The difference between as i see it between a SlackBuild script and the Arch way is that the program called "makepkg" which should be on your system is called from the slackbuild; whereas with Arch you have to call makepkg from in this case , the moe sub-directory , which is located in abs directory. When called makepkg will look for a pkgbuild script and use it, which is what i'm going to do now.
I open a terminal and change directory to /abs/moe I now run the command:
Code:
makepkg -g >> PKGBUILD && makepkg (06-27 13:25)Here i evoke makepkg with the g flag; its going to download the source file, generate a checksum for the file and put that info back into the pkgbuild script and then run makepkg on the new pkgbuild script . My pkgbuild script now looks like :
Code:
# R & D by andy brookes aka captain sensible
pkgname="moe"
pkgver=1.11
pkgrel=9
pkgdesc="Moe is a powerful but simple to use text editor \n Moe features multiple windows, unlimited undo redo, unlimited line length, global search and replace, and more. "
arch=("x86_64")
license=('GPL')
source=("http://mirror.koddos.net/gnu/moe/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.lz")
build() {
cd "$pkgname-${pkgver}"
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
}
package() {
cd "$pkgname-${pkgver}"
make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install
}
sha256sums=('0efbcbcf5a4a8d966541c6cb099ba0ab6416780366dbce82d9ff995a85a5e2f9')If i look into the moe directory the contents are now:
Code:
abs
└── moe
├── moe-1.11-9-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
├── moe-1.11.tar.lz
├── pkg
├── PKGBUILD
├── README.txt
└── srcSo a package called moe-1.11-9-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst has been created ; lets install it :
Code:
sudo pacman -U moe-1.11-9-x86_64.pkg.tar.zstWhen i ran that command i got the text in image pacman_u.png
i typed y and hit return key.
Now lets see if it installed and what we can find out.
To get info on moe (installed i run) :
Code:
sudo pacman -Qi moe (06-27 13:39)The output i got is in the image pacman _Qi_moe
its shows
Version : 1.11-9
and also "unknown packager" - me. Thats definitely the package i created ; i know that because the official AUR is 1.11.1
Now lets see what was put where :
Code:
[andrew@darkstar:abs/moe]$ sudo pacman -Ql moe (06-27 13:39)
moe /usr/
moe /usr/bin/
moe /usr/bin/moe
moe /usr/etc/
moe /usr/etc/moerc
moe /usr/share/
moe /usr/share/info/
moe /usr/share/info/moe.info.gz
moe /usr/share/man/
moe /usr/share/man/man1/
moe /usr/share/man/man1/moe.1.gzlets launch moe and see what it looks like (has to be done via a terminal via:
Code:
$ moeHere is an indication of the simplicity of the Arch package system. The package i created for moe was 1.11-9 I ran :
its a terminal based text editor- you can see Antonio Diaz , who is the creator bottom of text editor window
Code:
yay -Syuthats not only looks for updates for packages installed via pacman but also for packages created using a pkgbuild script and installed via pacman .After running yay i got:
Code:
:: Searching databases for updates...
:: Searching AUR for updates...
-> moe: local (1.11-9) is newer than AUR (1.11-1)its picking up that the package i created manually is ahead of AUR. Its so refreshing clear compared to Debian
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