µpkg: Very simple package installer/remover

Question

I was recently looking at the documentation for Arch packages and thought "Holy crap, that looks like a pain!". Especially for something really small, like a brainf*** interpreter. So what did I do? I took it upon myself to create my own packaging utility and file format, of course!
µpkg is written entirely in bash and is fairly small, about 115 lines total (although expect that number to increase as I implement more functionality).
Also, a note on versioning. I'm not going to use the decimal/point system, but a revision-based one. So much cleaner, not to mention easier to type.
Format
Packages are [optionally compressed] tarballs that contain a number of scripts and some files (duh). They're laid out like so:
* pre-install: Executed before installing.
* post-install: Executed after installing.
* pre-uninstall: Executed before uninstalling.
* post-uninstall: Executed after uninstalling.
* files/: A directory containing files, located such that they will be in the corresponding places in the root filesystem once installed.
Sample Packages
* sudo 1.7.1 x64
* bfutils x64 — Brainf***-related utilities.
To install, simply run "upkg install <package>" as root.
Downloads
* µpkg 1 — First release.
* µpkg 2 — Adds removal functionality. Improvements to internal library.
* µpkg 3 — Library fixed due to bugs.
* µpkg 4 — Now runs appropriate scripts when uninstalling.
Decompress the tarball and run the included installation script.
Obligatory Disclaimer
I cannot be held responsible if µpkg s**ts all over your system.
To Do
* Add package removal capabilities. [DONE]
* Maybe add package management (possibly as separate utility).
Last edited by Peasantoid (2009-05-03 03:24:06)

Answer 1

Interesting idea! Like others have said I don't really have a use for this myself but that is irrelevant. If you are having fun and find the utility useful others might too. If not, it's all good coding experience. Keep working on it.
Peasantoid wrote:Like I said, it seems like overkill to create an Arch package with all the metadata, dependencies, and so on if you're just distributing something small.
Personally I like Arch's PKGBUILDS. Arch is the first distro where I made up or edited the existing packages. It's just so easy. I never looked into making my own packages when running Gentoo though I don't know why. Arch's PKGBUILDS just sort of sneak up on you. At first you just use pacman, then you find something in AUR and you install ABS, then you are rebuilding packages in the repos to customize them for yourself and before you know it you are making your own package builds.
Peasantoid wrote:Platform specificity. µpkg doesn't have any ties with Arch (pacman, makepkg, and so on), so it's more or less cross-platform — it'll work with any distro, the BSDs, and even OS X. (But not Windows, obviously.)
This would be an interesting nut to crack. Things like autopackage have been less than successful as far as I know. If someone came up with a cross platform package format that was accepted by the OSS comunity and actually used that would be cool.
Last edited by mikesd (2009-05-03 02:04:31)