pakke - a package manager for DJGPP

[Introduction] [News] [Mailing List] [Download] [Latest Version] [Documentation] [Development]

Introduction

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.

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News

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Mailing List

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:


Click to subscribe to pakke-workers

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.

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Download

Binaries & Source Releases

Please read the installation section of the pakke manual before trying to install pakke. You may also want to read the changelog.

Documentation

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Development

CVS

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

Interesting Articles

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

Miscellaneous

wget home page
wget binaries for Win32
wget binaries for DOS

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Other Package Managers

These aren't being used as a basis for pakke, but may be of interest.

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This page was written by and is maintained by Richard Dawe.