I miss checkinstall
 

As much as src2pkg and makepkg have their uses (btw am I the only one who found makepkg is broken in Slack 13 64 bit?) I really miss checkinstall.

Checkinstall gave you the flexibility to configure with all kinds of options and then do make when you have the configuration options like you want. Then you compile and when you're done you su to root and creat the package and install it. But it has been broken somewhere during Slackware 12.

I can't use src2pkg unless I have very simple configuration (no way to get ./configure --help output and try a few different ways) and makepkg can be a pain because you have to create the dir structure you want and then move everything to some temporary place after you built it.

So now I am just using make install because these other methods are so unsatisfactory. I lose the ability to keep track of what I have (I do it manually now) and worse I lose the ability to yank a package in one shot.

What are you guys using now to make packages? Will checkinstall ever be fixed?

Thanks,

Gomer

Hi gomerpyle,

I use my own slackbuilds scripts, the page that started me:

http://www.slackwiki.org/Writing_A_SlackBuild_Script

Andrew

Most stuff I need has already had a SlackBuild written for it at http://www.slackbuilds.org.

Perhaps if you told us how you think it is broken someone could confirm/refute. I've built packages with it here on my Slack64 13.0 install and it appears to have worked so far.

I miss it too,
I just install it anyway and sometimes package creation still works.
I try to use sbopkg more and just hope everything I need is available there

You guys know that the src2pkg package also includes "trackinstall"? it works exactly like checkinstall

./configure --you-options
make
trackinstall -i='make install'


Package is made for you.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the link. I will check it.

I don't like to rely on these packages. Sometimes it helps when you have really wierd piece of software. I prefer to install all addons to /usr/local or /opt. Thanks.

Also, if you use the -Q option with src2pkg, it will start a separate terminal which shows the output of './configure --help' while pausing in the main terminal to let you enter the options you want -you can paste from the terminal with the --help output.

Seeing configure --help is pretty important to me, too, so here's what I do:
Also,
will install to /usr/local (a preference I share).

Src2pkg can automate almost anything you do when installing packages.
One issue I have been stumped with was failing to install some packages with really old install scripts that have a different name than install.sh. IIRC, it was CMU sphinx that I was installing. That was with a much older version of src2pkg; it has been improving a lot lately. I never put serious effort into working around the setup script issue, and I'd be willing to bet it can be done with src2pkg. I later found a program tarball that I actually prefer (cvoicecontrol) that builds without problem and default settings with src2pkg.

EDIT: the man himself beat me to it :), and showed a much better way to do interactive packages and see configure --help output. See previous post.

A slackbuild isn't a package. It's source code compiled on your computer using an automated, configurable script. The result is a package optimized for your system which is logged in the package database and is removable as a single package.

Wow you just made a friend! I wonder why gnashley didn't mention it to me when I was asking about this...anyway I already made a few packages while Linuxquestions.org was unreachable. It works great, thanks Gnashley and Daedra!

I understand its a script but it's not that helpful unless you're doing something like openorifice.org or other weird apps that don't install normally to standard locations.

It doesn't optimize the package it creates either.

Thanks. I know how to pass the prefix and other options, but it's an iterative process to first see the output of configure --help and then to start trying to get the thing configured like you want. I like trackinstall, so far it's exactly what I need.

About Slackbuild scripts :

Another 2,200 are available from Slacky.eu

http://www.slacky.eu/