[gentoo-user] Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[gentoo-user] Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[Harry Putnam]

After looking at:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2&chap=1#doc_chap2

[ Ebuild HOWTO ]

Reading only partially so far but this looks really complicated.  I
thought I remembered a more nuts and bolts howto somewhere more
appropriate for someone getting started who is ..er intellectually
challenged.

I really just want to add an epatch line to an existing ebuild but it
appears some protocols need to be followed to generate the manifest
and probably lots of other stuff.

Can anyone point me to something? 

I've see it said here a few times that creating an overlay and a
custom ebuild is `easy' but I suspect that only applies if you already
know how its done.

Re: [gentoo-user] Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[David Relson]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:16:26 -0600
Harry Putnam wrote:

> After looking at:
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2&chap=1#doc_chap2
> 
> [ Ebuild HOWTO ]
> 
> Reading only partially so far but this looks really complicated.  I
> thought I remembered a more nuts and bolts howto somewhere more
> appropriate for someone getting started who is ..er intellectually
> challenged.
> 
> I really just want to add an epatch line to an existing ebuild but it
> appears some protocols need to be followed to generate the manifest
> and probably lots of other stuff.
> 
> Can anyone point me to something? 
> 
> I've see it said here a few times that creating an overlay and a
> custom ebuild is `easy' but I suspect that only applies if you already
> know how its done.
> 

I've created a couple of patch ebuilds, so can provide some
(non-expert) info.  I don't recall all the steps I took to get
"educated" in this process, but I remember looking at a variety of
ebuilds, the patterns in their names (what's legal), and the commands
used within them.

For "system/package" (for example mail-filter/bogofilter) one would

1) create directory /usr/local/portage/system/package and
copy /usr/portage/system/package/* to it.  

2) put the patch file in /usr/local/portage/system/package/files/

3) create a new ebuild (with updated version) and an epatch line in
src_install()

4) update the manifest file with

   ebuild system/package/package-version.ebuild digest

Obviously these instructions are somewhat minimal.  You'll likely need
to run "emerge package" more than once to get the details right.

HTH,

David

[gentoo-user] Re: Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[Harry Putnam]

David Relson <relson@osagesoftware.com> writes:

> On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:16:26 -0600
> Harry Putnam wrote:
>

>> [ Ebuild HOWTO ]
>> 
>> Reading only partially so far but this looks really complicated.  I
>> thought I remembered a more nuts and bolts howto somewhere more
>> appropriate for someone getting started who is ..er intellectually
>> challenged.
>> 
>> I really just want to add an epatch line to an existing ebuild but it
>> appears some protocols need to be followed to generate the manifest
>> and probably lots of other stuff.
>> 
>> Can anyone point me to something? 
>> 
>> I've see it said here a few times that creating an overlay and a
>> custom ebuild is `easy' but I suspect that only applies if you already
>> know how its done.
>> 
>
> I've created a couple of patch ebuilds, so can provide some
> (non-expert) info.  I don't recall all the steps I took to get
> "educated" in this process, but I remember looking at a variety of
> ebuilds, the patterns in their names (what's legal), and the commands
> used within them.
>
> For "system/package" (for example mail-filter/bogofilter) one would
>
> 1) create directory /usr/local/portage/system/package and
> copy /usr/portage/system/package/* to it.  
>
> 2) put the patch file in /usr/local/portage/system/package/files/
>
> 3) create a new ebuild (with updated version) and an epatch line in
> src_install()
>
> 4) update the manifest file with
>
>    ebuild system/package/package-version.ebuild digest
>
> Obviously these instructions are somewhat minimal.  You'll likely need
> to run "emerge package" more than once to get the details right.

Thanks, it was a lot of help.  However I never did get the pieces
right.  My patch (really a gentoo@bug contributors) fails once I
finally did get enough of it lined up to process that far.

After some 40-50 or so attempts I just went ahead and pre patched the
main ebuild, ran digest on that... and emerge worked, at least its
compiling right now.

I realize that way will miss the good side of emerge in the future and
get overwritten.  But I want to try this package out so maybe I'll get
it right later.

Re: [gentoo-user] Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[Daniel Pielmeier]

2008/11/17 Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>:
> I really just want to add an epatch line to an existing ebuild but it
> appears some protocols need to be followed to generate the manifest
> and probably lots of other stuff.
>
> Can anyone point me to something?

Create an overlay and within that use the same structure as in the
portage tree like /path/to/overlay/category/yourpackage/

Make the overlay known to portage by editing /etc/make.conf
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="${PORTDIR_OVERLAY} /path/to/overlay"

Copy the ebuild you want to patch to the created directory. Create a
"files" directory within that directory and put your patch there. Note
that if the previous ebuild already needed this directory because of
other patches and files you need to copy them to that files directory
too.

Edit the ebuild by adding the epatch line to src_unpack (patches go to
src_unpack and not src_install) or add the src_unpack function if it
is not already there like below.

src_unpack() {
	unpack ${A}
	cd "${S}"
	epatch "${FILESDIR}"/your.patch
}

Then execute "ebuild yourpackage.ebuild manifest". Now you can try
"ebuild yourpackage.ebuild unpack" to run the unpack phase of the
ebuild to see if everything works.

-- 
Regards,
Daniel

[gentoo-user] Re: Nots and bolts of creating an ebuild

[Harry Putnam]

"Daniel Pielmeier" <daniel.pielmeier@googlemail.com> writes:

[...]

> Create an overlay and within that use the same structure as in the
> portage tree like /path/to/overlay/category/yourpackage/

[...]

Nice walkthru... and just what I needed...
Thanks to you and other posters who have provide some of the details.