Linux Solutions

Welcome to the tutorial guide. The tutorial will provide a user with guidance and instructions on installing packages. Annvix uses apt-get to install RPM packages available in the Annvix repositories. When a user wants to first install Annvix, he/she is given the choice of which mirror site to use to download package updates from.

Apt Repository Setup
Please note that a typical sources.list file will look like:
rpm ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/annvix/releases x86_64 2_0_RELEASE 2_0_RELEASE-doc
This tells apt that a user has an “rpm” repository defined, with the URL and path of the repository being ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/annvix/releases. The next bit identifies the architecture of the repository which can be either “i586″ or “x86_64″.

Repository names can be versioned, as in the above example, or can be “current” (for the latest -CURRENT release) or “release” (for the latest -RELEASE release). Using a versioned repository, however, ensures that once a new -RELEASE version comes out, that a user is not automatically upgrading to it.

Apt Basics
In order to update the package index, a user can use:
$ sudo apt-get update

This assumes that a user will provide apt privileges via sudo; if not, these commands will need to be executed as the root user. If a user wants to upgrade new packages, then he/she can use:
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

This will only install new packages that already exist on the system, but will not install any new packages. This is a safe way to update. If a user wants to install packages that pull in new packages (such as when upgrading the kernel), then he/she can use:
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This will do an upgrade, and will also install any updates that require new packages to satisfy dependencies. Using dist-upgrade is the only way that packages currently installed that require packages that are not currently installed will be upgraded.

In order to install new packages, a user can use:
$ sudo apt-get install [package]

This will install package “package” any any dependencies it requires and if a user wants to install exim-db then he/she should use:
$ sudo apt-get install exim-db

Please note that a user can provide as many package names as many as he/she likes to the install command; apt-get will install each one and their associated dependencies.
If a user wants to remove a package then he/she can use following command:
$ sudo apt-get remove [package]

Documentation Packages
All documentation is provided in “-doc” sub-packages. If a user wants to install a package, say exim on any other distribution, then he/she can get documentation associated with that package in /usr/share/doc/exim-4.66 (or whatever the version number happens to be). With Annvix, binary packages come with no documentation.
In order to install documentation, a user should specifically install the “-doc” package, which also implies that a user has the “-doc” repository available. To install the exim documentation, a user can use:
$ sudo apt-get install exim-doc

The documentation ends up in /usr/share/doc/[package]-[version].

Packages Available in Annvix
If a user wants to know what packages are provided in Annvix then he she can do so by browsing the FTP mirrors or looking at the Release Notes for a specific version, and then looking at the package list. For example, if a user wants to view the 2.0-RELEASE package list to see what packages are available for that version to install.

Creating Packages Via Ports
Similar to FreeBSD’s ports, Mandriva’s contribs, and other similar repositories, Annvix’s ports collection is a (slowly growing) collection of packages that are not part of the default Annvix main package base. These are “third-party” additions that extend the functionality of Annvix but also don’t burden the development team with maintenance. Annvix ports are packages that may be of interest to very few and may also be maintained by individuals who are not necessarily part of the development team. Examples of ports packages include the joe, various DJB programs such as djbdns, and other small utilities like pine and tree.

Ports are source-based; the only thing provided are a manifest (md5sum list) of source files, patches, and an RPM spec file. The ports builder program is a script that downloads the appropriate source files and, using the included patches and RPM spec, builds an RPM file that is in turn placed in an apt repository which can then be installed from. The concept is similar to that of Gentoo’s portage.

The builder script is fairly basic and attempts to be moderately smart and install packages required to properly build a package, but it is not yet intelligent enough to build another package (or set of packages) that may be required to build the requested package. For instance if package “bar” requires package “libfoo” (which is not in main, but is in ports), it will just error out and a user will need to manually build “libfoo” first. Then a user can proceed to build “bar”. builder needs to be extended at some point to do this for a user. It also needs to be able to provide RPM signatures on generated files for integrity purposes; it does not yet do this.

If you followed advise and guidance as provided in this tutorial guide then you would have learnt about how to install packages in Annvix.