Lack

Quickstart

Preparation

• Download the lastest lack from the Downloads section and copy it in your $HOME/bin directory.

• Run $HOME/bin/lack --prepare to prepare the installation locations

• Add source $HOME/local/lack/init.sh at the top of your .bashrc.

• Verify you have wget and atool (which provides the aunpack command) available on your computer. If not, you must install it, in this order (see the next section)

Installing a package

• Search for a XML package description file of your software. For example, in Packages. Copy the URL.

• Run lack http://repository/name_VERSION.xml, it will download the XML package description, the sources, build and install everything according to the content of the file.

• Wait a moment

• Enjoy your new software

Removing a package

• Simply remove the $LACK/Name/VERSION directory

• Run lack --update in order to update the database

Writing a new package

• Create a XML file named name_VERSION.xml with the following content (here, the Mutt package):

     <package>
        <name>Mutt</name>
        <version>1.5.18</version>
        <licence>GPL </licence>
        <homepage>http://www.mutt.org</homepage>
        <maintainer>
           <name>Olivier Schwander</name>
           <email>olivier.schwander...ens-lyon.org</email>
        </maintainer>
        <url>ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/devel/mutt-1.5.18.tar.gz</url>
        <directory>mutt-1.5.18</directory> <!-- directory created during the extraction of the archive -->
        <digest>27c30037120189b9f9c0d3e76361b8f8</digest> <!-- MD5 sum of the archive -->
        <patches>
           <url>http://www.spinnaker.de/mutt/compressed/patch-1.5.18.rr.compressed.1.gz</url>
           <url>http://chadok.info/~oschwand/mutt/patch-1.5.4.vk.pgp_verbose_mime</url>
           <url>http://chadok.info/~oschwand/mutt/xtitles</url>
        </patches>
        <depends>
           <!-- not implemented -->
        </depends>
        <configuration>
           <command>./configure</command>
           <options>
              <arg>--enable-debug</arg>
              <arg>--enable-fcntl</arg>
              <arg>--enable-hcache</arg>
              <arg>--enable-imap</arg>
              <arg>--enable-smtp</arg>
              <arg>--enable-pop</arg>
              <arg>--with-curses</arg>
              <arg>--with-gnutls</arg>
              <arg>--with-idn</arg>
              <arg>--with-mixmaster</arg>
              <arg>--without-qdbm</arg>
              <arg>--without-bdb</arg>
              <arg>--without-homespool</arg>
           </options>
        </configuration>
        <build>
           <command>make</command>
        </build>
        <install>
           <command>make install</command>
        </install>
     </package>