KISS Package Experiment

This is an alternative package system I am experimenting with. Instead of the usual PKGBUILD, APKBUILD, xbps-template and Pkgfile format, this repository explores a more unixy approach.

Each Package is split into multiple files.

zlib/            # Package name.
├─ build         # Build script.
├─ depends       # Dependencies (one per line).
├─ sources       # Sources (one per line).
├─ version       # Package version.
┘

# Files generated by the package manager.
├─ manifest      # The built package's files and directories.
├─ checksums     # The checksums for the source files.
┘

# Optional files.
├─ post_install  # The script to run after install.
├─ release       # Force a package update for the same version.
┘

When a built package is installed, this entire directory tree is copied to /var/db/puke where it becomes a database entry. Listing the dependencies for a package is a simple as printing the contents of the depends file. Searching for which package owns a file is as simple as checking each manifest file.

This new structure also allows the package manager to be stupid simple. POSIX sh has no arrays. However, they are mimicked by looping over each line of each file. No more insecure depends="pkg pkg pkg" and for pkg in $depends.

Instead, the following can be done.

while read -r depend; do
    # do thing.
done < depends

Table of Contents

• build
• manifest
• sources
• depends

build

The build file should contain the necessary steps to patch, configure, build and install the package. When at the install step; the variable $pkg_dir is available. This variable points to the directory the package manager uses for built packages. Whatever is in this directory will become part of the package's manifest and will be copied to / (or $PUKE_ROOT).

./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --libdir=/lib \
    --shared

make
make DESTDIR="$pkg_dir" install

manifest

The manifest file contains the built package's file and directory list. The full paths to files are listed first and the directories (in reverse) follow. This allows the package manager to remove the directories if they're empty without needing checks in-between.

/usr/share/man/man3/zlib.3
/usr/include/zconf.h
/usr/include/zlib.h
/lib/libz.so.1.2.11
/lib/libz.so.1
/lib/libz.so
/lib/libz.a
/lib/pkgconfig/zlib.pc
/usr/share/man/man3
/usr/share/man
/usr/share
/usr/include
/usr
/lib/pkgconfig
/lib

sources

The sources file contains the package's sources one per line. Sources can be local or remote.

https://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-X.X.X.tar.gz
patches/fix-musl.patch

depends

The depends file contains the package's dependencies one per line.

zlib
binutils
openssl