[Introduction] [News] [Mailing List] [Download] [Latest Version] [Documentation] [Development]
pakke is a package manager for DJGPP. It is currently under development. It is similar in concept to other package managers like RPM, but tailored for the DJGPP environment. The current design aims are (*):
The following design aims have not yet been met:
pakke is intended for all, but may be of most use to "power" users.
pakke's package management will be controlled by DJGPP Software Manifests (DSM). Each DSM will describe a package - where to put it, how to install, what other packages you need, etc. DSMs are described in the documentation section below.
(*) pakke's intended functionality has increased rapidly from its initial "what have I got installed?" function.
pakke uses a library called libpakke, which contains some of the package management code used by pakke. libpakke will also be used as the back-end of KITE, a friendly front-end for DJGPP package management. KITE is being written by Laurynas Biveinis, who wrote LBinstDJ (install.exe on the DJGPP archive on Simtel.net). Here Laurynas describes KITE:
KITE (KITE Is The Installer) is a tool for doing first time DJGPP installation. It features a text user interface, so it is aimed at novices, which haven't grokked the true power of command-line tools yet. KITE is about 80% feature-complete, but it is severely lacking manpower, so pauses of 8 months are not uncommon in its development. Feel free to contact us if you want to help with this.
KITE is being development with pakke (see the development section below). KITE is still very much in an alpha state. If you have questions about pakke or KITE, please send them to the pakke mailing list.
2003-12-17: I am no longer maintaining this program. Please contact me, if you'd like to take over maintainership.
2003-03-15: pakke 0.2.3 has been released. See the changelog, readme, installation information and pakke manual for details. Please see the download section below, to obtain pakke.
2002-10-18: pakke 0.2.2 has been released.
2002-06-30: pakke 0.2.1 has been released.
2002-05-19: pakke 0.2.0 has been released.
2002-05-19: DSM specification 0.6.0 has been released. Please see the download section below, to obtain the DSM specification.
2002-03-10: pakke 0.1.6 has been released.
2001-08-27: pakke 0.1.5 has been released.
2001-07-02: pakke 0.1.4 has been released.
2001-07-02: DSM specification 0.5.1 has been released.
2001-04-24: pakke 0.1.3 has been released.
There is a mailing list for discussing the development of pakke. This is kindly hosted by Yahoo! Groups (formerly eGroups, formerly Onelist). You can join the mailing list using the following link:
If you have joined the list, send mail to pakke-workers@yahoogroups.com. You do not have to be on the list to post to it, but please only post relevant material.
Please read the installation section of the pakke manual before trying to install pakke. You may also want to read the changelog.
pakke 0.2.3 release 1 binaries (916KB)
pakke 0.2.3 release 1 sources (2127KB)
dsmcheck Manual - dsmcheck checks the syntax and validity of DSMs.
libpakke Manual - libpakke is the package management library that pakke uses.
DJGPP Software Manifest (DSM) - DSM specification in HTML, DSM specification in plain text - These will contain all the information about the packages, including dependencies on other packages, order of installation, installation scripts, etc. You may also like to browse some of the DSMs.
pakke and KITE are in CVS. DJ Delorie is kindly hosting it on his CVS server. To access the source via CVS, please follow the DJGPP CVS instructions, but subsitute "pakke" for "djgpp". Below are some links that may help you use CVS. If they don't, please send a mail to the pakke-workers mailing list.
GNU CVS page
CVS manual
CVS information page
The CVS Book
Zez.org article on
remote CVS usage
An
O'Reilly article introducing CVS
Many of these articles may be about Linux package management systems, but the principles are interesting nonetheless.
Security Issues
of Auto-upgrades
It's All in the Packaging
[DRAFT]
An RPM port
of APT
wget home page
wget binaries for Win32
wget binaries for DOS
These aren't being used as a basis for pakke, but may be of interest.
rpm - One of the original package managers, as used on RedHat Linux. The book Maximum RPM looks like a useful reference to rpm.
dpkg - Another package manager, as used on Debian GNU/Linux.
This page was written by and is maintained by Richard Dawe.