pkgsrc

The NetBSD Packages Collection ( pkgsrc ) is a package management for UNIX -like operating systems. Unlike many other package management it runs on almost all UNIX -like operating systems, is not a given directory - eg / usr - fixed and can be installed by users who do not have system administrator rights.

The preferred installation method in pkgsrc is to compile from the source code of the packages, but there are also ready-made binary packages for some operating systems, particularly NetBSD.

Pkgsrc is released as open source under the BSD license.

Just as NetBSD runs on many hardware platforms, was pkgsrc ported to many UNIX -like systems: AIX, BSD / OS, Darwin ( Mac OS X), DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, HP- UX, Interix, IRIX, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OSF / 1, Solaris, QNX, MirBSD, Minix.

Use

Binary packages

Pkgsrc provides a few commands that allow binary packages installed ( pkg_add ), updated, and can be removed from the system ( pkg_delete ). The binary packages for NetBSD are available on the FTP server of the NetBSD project.

The use of the binary package has the disadvantage that not all programs from the pkgsrc directory ( see Related links ) are available. In particular, missing packages whose redistribution is not allowed. Another disadvantage is that over time lose the binary packages to date.

At the end of each quarter, a " stable " branch is created by pkgsrc. The packages in this branch are updated only when vulnerabilities are fixed. In addition, generated by these activities for some of the supported platforms NetBSD binary packages. In the " development branch " Updates are frequent, this flow here regularly experimental innovations, so it may be that some packages can not be installed.

From the Sources

If there are no binary packages for a platform, the only possibility is to build the packages from source yourself. Moreover, there are additional options that must already be fixed at compile time for many packages. Another reason pkgsrc to install from the sources is that a lot of packages can also be installed from the "normal" users, so do not require system administrator rights. For such configurations no binary packages are generally provided because the directory where the packages are installed, is often chosen individually. In Wip - branch ( Work-In - Progress) unofficial packages from developers are maintained and can be shared with the regular, similar to the ports tree.