DIY Packages

I am about to start trying to get some of my own software in to package format. Assuming my stuff is simple enough for Packit to deal with, the next step would be to see if the packaging has been successful, and Packman could install it.

I have actually fetched the urls in the sources of my version of Packman, and they look like a simple text file with details of each package hosted. The included url for each package points, usually, to a zip file.

Is this all that is required for ‘test’ package delivery? I thought I could use either my own web site, or even WebJames running on a local machine. Is this all that would be needed for test purposes, or is there more ‘magic’ involved at the server end?

You only need a package source file and the package. Here’s an example package source file.

Package: Anagramarama
Priority: Optional
Section: Games
Maintainer: GCCSDK mailing list <<a href="mailto:gcc@gccsdk.riscos.info">gcc@gccsdk.riscos.info</a>>
Standards-Version: 0.1.0
Version: 0.3-1
Depends: SharedUnixLibrary (>= 1.11)
Licence: Unknown
License: Free
Description: Word game.
 The aim is to find as many words as possible in the time available.
 Get the longest word and you'll advance to the next level.
Size: 890588
MD5Sum: 654afb1134ec9c55d0289bd92f4a2ce2
URL: /anagramarama_0.3-1.zip

You can put everything in the !Webjames ‘site’ folder. The URL: then just needs to be ‘/filename’.
The rest of the fields will need to match otherwise you will get an error from !Packman.

Thanks Chris (G) for confirming there is nothing else involved.

Are there any tools for generating source files automagically from a bunch of packages? There’s the Autobuilder stuff, which looked fairly specific to the Autobuilder; is there anything else?

Also, is PackIt the only option for package generation (aside from the Autobuilder)? I’d want something that ran on Linux and could also sort out package version numbers for itself if pointed to the existing repository.

I’m happy to do a bit of DIY, but it seems pointless reinventing the wheel if someone else has already sorted the problem out.

You can use the Autobuilder without autobuilding things. Basically you just make a package directory with the right file layout then call the add-riscpkg script to make the packaging information. Here’s the Sunfish package script (setvars), which just grabs existing zips and shuffles the files around.

AB_PVERSION=2.05
AB_ROVERSION=2

UPSTREAM_ZIP=Sunfish_${AB_PVERSION}
UPSTREAM_URL=http://www.riscpkg.org/arm/Sunfish/${UPSTREAM_ZIP}
PATCH_ZIP=sunfish.zip
PATCH_URL=http://www.cgransden.co.uk/${PATCH_ZIP}

# don't build anything
AB_NOREMOTE=yes
AB_PRECONF=":"
AB_COMPILEFAIL=yes
AB_INSTALL=no
AB_CONFIG=
AB_MAKE=

AB_LICENCE=Non-free

ab_make () {
  :
}
AB_CATEGORY=Library

# $S build directory
# $D top level of destination package directory
# $H autobuilder directory for package
# $A RISC OS application (after calling ab_create_app, etc)
ab_package () {
    wget $UPSTREAM_URL
    mkdir -p $S/Sunfish
    $GCCSDK_UNZIP -d $S/Sunfish $UPSTREAM_ZIP
    wget $PATCH_URL
    mkdir -p $S/patch
    $GCCSDK_UNZIP -d $S/patch $PATCH_ZIP
    cp $S/patch/* $S/Sunfish/Apps/Disc/\!Sunfish/
    sed -i "s/^Maintainer.*$/Maintainer: GCCSDK Developers \<gcc\@gccsdk\.riscos\.info\>/" $S/Sunfish/RiscPkg/Control,fff
    sed -i "s/^Version.*$/Version: $AB_PVERSION-$AB_ROVERSION/" $S/Sunfish/RiscPkg/Control,fff
    mv $S/Sunfish $D/
}

As that’s amending an existing package it’s missing the usual last line in ab_package, which is (for example):

  AB_SUBPACKAGE=$AB_PACKAGE $AB_HOME/add-riscpkg -section System \

    -name RaspberryPi-Firmware -depends RaspberryPi-FirmwareConfig

cd autobuilder/

./build Sunfish

Have a look at some of the other packages like RaspberryPi-* or DrWimp for more examples. Most of the time you can fill in the fields in the setvars file (AB_LICENCE, AB_CATEGORY etc), and just give a RiscPkg/Copyright file and a RiscPkg/Control file which only contains the description lines, and the autobuilder will construct the rest of the package for you. It includes filetype-friendly zip and unzip tools so you can handle RISC OS zips on Linux. Version numbering is taken care of by setting AB_PVERSION=(upstream version number) and AB_ROVERSION=(package revision number).

The autobuilder/build-website and autobuilder/build-index scripts will also build the package indexes from a directory of packages, to put on a website. The ROOL package repository uses these – just drop a new package in and run autobuilder/build-index to rebuild the index and website.

For any others who are thinking of using !Packit to package up their own stuff natively on RISC OS, I found !Packit worked very well last night on a couple of my apps. Not fully tested whether the packages will install via Packman yet, but looking at the packages produced, everything seems to be there.

If you are thinking of packaging for your own stuff, I say go for it!

To test packages with PackMan you can just drag the package you have created to the PackMan iconbar icon. It will then appear as any other application in the main window where you can install it as normal.

The packages are just zip files that are laid out with a particular format and include some extra text files with controlling information. You can create these in Linux or RISC OS without using any special software (except of course, the autobuilder zip program so it can set the filetypes for RISC OS). For instance the autobuilder just creates all the files in a temporary directory and then zips it up to make a package.

Although PackIt does have some limitations as it has been designed to create simple binary packages easily, I frequently use it as a starting point for more complicated packages as you can just extract the files from the package it creates using SparkPlug or InfoZip or the like and then modify them by hand.