[gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Chris]

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Hello Everyone,

I will begin by stating my problem.  I have the source code (in
*.tar.bz2 format) for a couple of pieces of software that are not in the
Portage tree at all.  I would like to compile and install them in such a
way that I can use them, and even so Portage recognizes them.

I have read the official Gentoo documentation regarding Portage, ebuilds
and diverting from the Portage tree and while it gave me some ideas, it
really didn't fully answer the question of exactly *how* to do what I want.

I am hoping that someone can provide me with resources - examples and/or
a walkthrough would be especially helpful.  I realize that the Gentoo
team can only do so much and carefully test each package before putting
it in the official tree.  There are just some pieces of software that I
want that are not even in the testing tree.

Regards,
Chris
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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Sunday 11 March 2007 05:25:24 Chris wrote:
> I will begin by stating my problem.  I have the source code (in
> *.tar.bz2 format) for a couple of pieces of software that are not in the
> Portage tree at all.  I would like to compile and install them in such a
> way that I can use them, and even so Portage recognizes them.
>
> I have read the official Gentoo documentation regarding Portage, ebuilds
> and diverting from the Portage tree and while it gave me some ideas, it
> really didn't fully answer the question of exactly *how* to do what I want.
>
> I am hoping that someone can provide me with resources - examples and/or
> a walkthrough would be especially helpful.  I realize that the Gentoo
> team can only do so much and carefully test each package before putting
> it in the official tree.  There are just some pieces of software that I
> want that are not even in the testing tree.

The devmanual is a good place to start. If you use IRC then #gentoo-dev-help 
at freenode is a good place to get more help...

http://devmanual.gentoo.org/
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:10:22 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:

> > I am hoping that someone can provide me with resources - examples
> > and/or a walkthrough would be especially helpful.  I realize that the
> > Gentoo team can only do so much and carefully test each package
> > before putting it in the official tree.  There are just some pieces
> > of software that I want that are not even in the testing tree.  
> 
> The devmanual is a good place to start. If you use IRC then
> #gentoo-dev-help at freenode is a good place to get more help...

Also, search Bugzilla and the forums, someone may have already created
ebuilds for these programs.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Amoebit: Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time.

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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Nick Rout]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:10:22 +0100, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:
>
>   
>>> I am hoping that someone can provide me with resources - examples
>>> and/or a walkthrough would be especially helpful.  I realize that the
>>> Gentoo team can only do so much and carefully test each package
>>> before putting it in the official tree.  There are just some pieces
>>> of software that I want that are not even in the testing tree.  
>>>       
>> The devmanual is a good place to start. If you use IRC then
>> #gentoo-dev-help at freenode is a good place to get more help...
>>     
>
> Also, search Bugzilla and the forums, someone may have already created
> ebuilds for these programs.
>
>   
Also look at ebuilds for similar programs. Write an ebuild, its not that 
difficult in a simple case.

With an ebuild, it is much easier to uninstall and upgrade packages.


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[gentoo-user] Re: A question regarding non-Portage software...

[»Q«]

In <news:45F384B4.7030001@comcast.net>,
Chris <cjw2004d@comcast.net> wrote:

> There are just some pieces of software that I
> want that are not even in the testing tree.

If you really need to write ebuilds for them, someone other than me
will help, I'm sure.  But you may find what you want in the Sunrise
overlay.

<http://www.gentoo-sunrise.org/sunrise>

-- 
»Q«

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Masood Ahmed]

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»Q« <boxcars@gmx.net> writes:

> In <news:45F384B4.7030001@comcast.net>,
> Chris <cjw2004d@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> There are just some pieces of software that I
>> want that are not even in the testing tree.
>
> If you really need to write ebuilds for them, someone other than me
> will help, I'm sure.  But you may find what you want in the Sunrise
> overlay.
>
> <http://www.gentoo-sunrise.org/sunrise>

Or if you are unable to find the ebuild in sunrise overlay try googling
the package name + ebuild. In most cases you can find 3rd party ebuilds
for even the most obsucure software. If the ebuild happens to be in a overlay
then it's pretty easy to have it using layman.

Hope that helps,
Masood Ahmed
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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Michael [Plouj] Ploujnikov]

On 3/10/07, Chris <cjw2004d@comcast.net> wrote:
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> Hash: SHA256
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I will begin by stating my problem.  I have the source code (in
> *.tar.bz2 format) for a couple of pieces of software that are not in the
> Portage tree at all.  I would like to compile and install them in such a
> way that I can use them, and even so Portage recognizes them.

You most likely want to install that software in /usr/local as per
Gentoo's filesystem layout [1]. The way you can do that with
autotoolized software is like this:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
make install

I don't know what you mean by making Portage recognize the software
installed this way. Do you want Portage to be able to uninstall and/or
upgrade this software? If so, the simple answer is you it can't do
that. You have to manage the software outside of Portage yourself.

> I have read the official Gentoo documentation regarding Portage, ebuilds
> and diverting from the Portage tree and while it gave me some ideas, it
> really didn't fully answer the question of exactly *how* to do what I want.

You probably arrived at this state because that documentation wasn't
talking about what you really wanted :)


References:
[1] - http://devmanual.gentoo.org/general-concepts/filesystem/index.html

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[gentoo-user] Re: A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Steve Long]

Michael [Plouj] Ploujnikov wrote:

> On 3/10/07, Chris <cjw2004d@comcast.net> wrote:
>> I will begin by stating my problem.  I have the source code (in
>> *.tar.bz2 format) for a couple of pieces of software that are not in the
>> Portage tree at all.  I would like to compile and install them in such a
>> way that I can use them, and even so Portage recognizes them.
> 
> You most likely want to install that software in /usr/local as per
> Gentoo's filesystem layout [1]. The way you can do that with
> autotoolized software is like this:
> 
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
> make
> make install
> 
> I don't know what you mean by making Portage recognize the software
> installed this way. Do you want Portage to be able to uninstall and/or
> upgrade this software? If so, the simple answer is you it can't do
> that. You have to manage the software outside of Portage yourself.
> 
That's exactly right, which is why it goes into /usr/local. You can however
notify portage that you have a certain package on your system
with /etc/portage/package.provided - I used this for that kde-env script
that was moved last year, as certain pkgs in the tree still depended on its
ebuild, but it had been moved to kde-libs (which it blocked.) I unmerged it
to get kde-libs, and put an entry in package.provided for pkgs which still
had a dependency on it. Once the tree had all been updated I deleted the
entry.

package.provided
  A list of packages (one per line) that portage should assume have been
provided. Useful for porting to non-Linux  systems. Portage will not 
attempt to update a package that is listed here unless another package
explicitly requires a version that is newer than what has been listed.

So in that sense portage will recognise the software for dependency
calculation. You should be aware of that last bit; I recommend reading man
portage for more explanation. (Oh and man -k is useful if you've not heard
of it.)

HTH,
steveL


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Sunday 11 March 2007 15:01:27 Steve Long wrote:
> > I don't know what you mean by making Portage recognize the software
> > installed this way. Do you want Portage to be able to uninstall and/or
> > upgrade this software? If so, the simple answer is you it can't do
> > that. You have to manage the software outside of Portage yourself.

He can if he makes an ebuild for it (or as Neil suggested finds one outside 
the tree). It's not that hard to do.

> [...] package.provided - I used this for that kde-env script that was moved
> last year, as certain pkgs in the tree still depended on its ebuild, but it
> had been moved to kde-libs (which it blocked.) I unmerged it to get
> kde-libs, and put an entry in package.provided for pkgs which still had a
> dependency on it. Once the tree had all been updated I deleted the entry.

package.provided is certainly not intended to be used to circumvent 
dependencies due to blocks. Not that that has any relevance to this thread 
though.

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Alex Schuster]

Michael [Plouj] Ploujnikov writes:

> You most likely want to install that software in /usr/local as per
> Gentoo's filesystem layout [1]. The way you can do that with
> autotoolized software is like this:
>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
> make
> make install
>
> I don't know what you mean by making Portage recognize the software
> installed this way. Do you want Portage to be able to uninstall and/or
> upgrade this software? If so, the simple answer is you it can't do
> that. You have to manage the software outside of Portage yourself.

Additionally, I like to have the stuff separated in sub-directories 
of /usr/local, and use stow or better xstow to create symlinks, so the 
software appears to be installed directly in /usr/local.

  emerge xstow
  mkdir /usr/local/stow
  ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/foo-1.2.3 && make && make install
  cd /usr/local/stow
  xstow foo-1.2.3

To later uninstall, without the need to use "make uninstall":
  cd /usr/local/stow
  xstow -D foo-1.2.3
  \rm -r foo-1.2.3

Or to try out a newer version of foo, without deleting foo-1.2.3:
  ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/foo-1.2.4 && make && make install
  cd /usr/local/stow
  xstow -D foo-1.2.3
  xstow foo-1.2.4
  
	Alex
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Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 March 2007, Alex Schuster wrote:

> Additionally, I like to have the stuff separated in sub-directories
> of /usr/local, and use stow or better xstow to create symlinks, so
> the software appears to be installed directly in /usr/local.

That sounds  like an awful lot of work, all for no additional 
benefit. /usr/local is for locally compiled pieces of software, and 
normally one runs 'make uninstall' in the code's src dir to remove it. 
Also, /usr/local is not supposed to have a hierarchy of sub-dir's (a'la 
windows) beneath it per LFS. /opt is a better choice for that.

As Bo and others have mentioned, an ebuild that you create yourself and 
place in a local overlay is by far the best solution, *especially* if 
the package installs just fine with './configure && make && make 
install'. In that case, the ebuild is literally just a few statements 
such as SRC_URI, HOMEPAGE and perhaps a DEPENDS if there are selectable 
configs. You gain all the benefits of stow plus all the benefits of 
portage, including emerge -C to remove the package from the system

Try it, it's WAY easier than most folk think it is

alan


-- 
Optimists say the glass is half full,
Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
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