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Re: epkg /usr/local/ package management



*- Matt Garman wrote about "epkg /usr/local/ package management"
| 
| I find myself installing things in /usr/local/ occationally.  There is
| a type of "package management" system exclusively for /usr/local/.
| 
| For folks who do install things in /usr/local/, you may be interested
| in the following:
| 
| http://www-wsg.cso.uiuc.edu/duct/
| and some more info can be found at
| http://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/encap/
| 
| The first URL is a page where you can download "epkg" a more advanced
| version of "encap," which is described in the second URL.
| 
| Encap package management basically takes precompiled binaries and
| makes symlinks for you in the appropriate places of /usr/local/.  It's
| nothing that couldn't be done manually, but if you install something
| largish or several packages in /usr/local, then it may help.
| 
| For example, an encap package is simply a tarball; typically it is
| extracted into /usr/local/encap, making the following directories:
| 
| /usr/local/encap/<packagename>/bin
| /usr/local/encap/<packagename>/man
| /usr/local/encap/<packagename>/lib
| 
| Symlinks are then made from /usr/local/encap/<packagename>/bin to
| /usr/local/bin and so on and so forth.
| 
| The definition is a bit sketchy, but if you're interested, check out
| the web pages.
| 
| There is a distribution, Nomad (www.nomadlinux.com) based entirely on
| this system, and the developing University of Illinois Linux distrib
| is based on this.
| 
| I find epkg works great with dpkg -- the two never know each other
| exist, and they never get in each other's way (so to speak).  Epkg is
| entirely /usr/local, and dpkg handles the rest.
| 
| I thought perhaps someone would find this useful, especially if you
| play around in /usr/local often.  I used it to install xemacs 20.3,
| because xemacs 20.4 has the gpm console ctrl-z bug.
| 

Don't know if you know of this alternative or not.  Debian already has
a similiar product packaged called 'stow'.  It works in exactly the
same way.


Package: stow
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Installed-Size: 141
Maintainer: Charles Briscoe-Smith <cpbs@debian.org>
Version: 1.3.2-10
Description: Organiser for /usr/local/ hierarchy
 GNU Stow helps the system administrator organise files under /usr/local/
 by allowing each piece of software to be installed in its own tree under
 /usr/local/stow/, and then using symlinks to create the illusion that
 all the software is installed in the same place.


-- 
Brian 
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"Never criticize anybody until you have walked a mile in their shoes,  
 because by that time you will be a mile away and have their shoes." 
							   - unknown  

Mechanical Engineering                              servis@purdue.edu
Purdue University                   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
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