Spack: the S(eb's|lack) packager
You are here on the home page of the Spack project, a package generator designed for Linux Slackware and/or its derivates. If you are a lazy Slacker which hates writing SlackBuilds (hey! just like me!! ), there is a chance for you to find something interesting here...
Table of content
About
Spack aims to shrink drastically the code you are required to write to make a decent Slackware package. In order to achieve this goal, it manages for you all of the redundant tasks which are relative to the Slackware packaging policy (like fix permissions, compress the manuals, strip the binaries, fetch the docs, and so on... ), just letting you build and put your software in a temporary root.
It results that your code is faster to write, easier to maintain, and clearer for others. For instance, here is the typical piece of code you will have to write (if you have/choose to do it, since Spack has also a little built-in packaging process which can deal with many things without requiring a single line of code from you):
./configure --prefix=$prefix make make DESTDIR=$pkgdir || exit 1
Trivial isn't it? but maybe, as you read this, you hear a little (and wise) voice which says "I know this kind of magic tool, which becomes a nightmare of workarounds as soon as things are a little bit more tricky". This little voice is often right, but not this time because Spack is thought to let you a total control on the code. If you want or need it, you can selectively disable each of steps it manages for you, then use your own code (possibly a complete SlackBuild) to get things in the way you want.
Download
Spack is a mere Shell (Ash/Bash compliant) script released under the very friendly terms of the MIT/X11 license. Bellow, you can get the lastest source archive:
There is of course also a Slackware package available from this site, for those who don't want to deal with the sources. This one ships Spack alone, separately from the other little contained tools; these ones are available in their own package, see bellow.
Spack has a very few requirements: the GNU Coreutils, Awk, Sed, Wget (optional) and the Slackware Makepkg script (optional). In a word, nothing more than what is required by a classic SlackBuild.
The Spack's tools
Spack comes with other commands that aim to help you to manage and make your packages. They are also shipped with the source archive but, to not enforce their installation if you are only interested in the packager, we distribute specific package.
This one provides the following commands:
- spkdb - build a data basis from the Slackware's MANIFEST or packages for spkreq;
- spkdesc - easily format slack-desc files;
- spkdock - help you to arrange the packages you build and their sources;
- spklist - list and explore the content of the installed packages;
- spkreq - locate in which package is the file or directory you need;
- spktag - a quick way to generate a tagfiles distribution.
The requirements to use them are identical to the Spack's ones.
Help & contact
The README file inside the archive explains you how to install spack, and you should find all you need to play with it in the embedded spack.8 manual.
If for any reason (bug report, fix, suggestion, feedback, question, and so on... ), you need to contact me (Seb), use this address (in English or in French): sbb(a)tuxfamily*org (replace "(a)" with "@" and "*" with ".").