Arch Linux Packaging

Arch Linux

Arch Linux encourages and empowers users to create their own software packages.

• The package manager pacman is designed to mix and match official binary packages with unofficial, locally compiled packages.

• Packages are never split between software and development headers.
• Build options and flags are coordinated through system configuration packages.
• Tools for isolated build processes are well tested and documented.

PKGBUILD

A PKGBUILD is a shell script to build a software package installable by pacman(8). The shell script is called by the makepkg(8) utility.

A PKGBUILD...

• mandatorily defines the pkgname, pkgver, pkgrel, and arch variables

• defines dependencies as an array variable, wherein each element is a package name with versioning constraints

  • try: depends=('foobar>=1.8.0' 'foobar<2.0.0')

• defines well-known functions that will be called by makepkg(8)

  • prepare applies patches to the source code

  • build calls the build pipeline, including any configuration steps

  • check calls the test suite

  • package creates the package

It's also possible to specify build-time dependencies with the makedepends variable (same format as depends), test suite dependencies with the checkdepends variables (again, same format), and optional (feature gate) dependencies with the optdepends variable (try: optdepends=('cups: printing support')).

If a package provides software that may be depended upon by other packages, set the provides array variable accordingly. Try: provides=('foobar=1.2.3').

Arch User Repository

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