XBPS

The X Binary Package System (in short XBPS) is a binary package system designed and implemented from scratch. Its goal is to be fast, easy to use, bug-free, featureful and portable as much as possible.

The XBPS code is totally compatible with POSIX/SUSv2/C99 standards, and released with a Simplified BSD license (2 clause). There is a well documented API provided by the XBPS Library that is the basis for its frontends to handle binary packages and repositories. Some highlights:

• Supports multiple local and remote repositories (HTTP/HTTPS/FTP).
• RSA signed remote repositories (NEW in 0.27).
• SHA256 hashes for package metadata, files and binary packages.
• Supports package states (ala dpkg) to mitigate broken package installs/updates.
• Ability to resume partial package install/updates.
• Ability to unpack only files that have been modified in package updates.
• Ability to use virtual packages.
• Ability to check for incompatible shared libraries in reverse dependencies.
• Ability to replace packages.
• Ability to put packages on hold (to never update them. NEW in 0.16).
• Ability to preserve/update configuration files.
• Ability to force reinstallation of any installed package.
• Ability to downgrade any installed package.
• Ability to execute pre/post install/remove/update scriptlets.
• Ability to check package integrity: missing files, hashes, missing or unresolved (reverse)dependencies, dangling or modified symlinks, etc.
• Low memory footprint.
• Fast dependency resolver and sorting algorithms.

Getting source code

Starting with 0.26 there are not source tarballs anymore. git must be used to clone the repository with the appropiate tag. The latest stable version can be fetched with:

$ git clone -b <version> git://github.com/xtraeme/xbps.git

See git tag -l to list all available stable releases.

Build requirements

To build this you'll need:

• A C99 compiler (clang and gcc tested)
• GNU make
• pkg-config
• zlib
• openssl
• libarchive >= 2.8.0

and optionally:

• graphviz and doxygen (--enable-api-docs) to build API documentation.
• atf >= 0.15 (--enable-tests) to build the Kyua test suite.

Build instructions

Standard configure script (not generated by GNU autoconf).

./configure --prefix=/blah
make -jX
make install

By default PREFIX is set /usr/local and may be changed by setting --prefix in the configure script. The DESTDIR variable is also supported at the install stage.

If you want to build the tests too add --enable-tests to configure. Also make sure you have kyua installed. To run a test call this:

kyua test -k ./tests/.../Kyuafile

There are some more options that can be tweaked, see them with ./configure --help.

Good luck!