Annvix
Personal tools



/User Guide/Packaging/Installing

From Annvix

Installing Packages

Installing packages in Annvix is very simple. Annvix uses apt-get to install RPM packages available in the Annvix repositories, which are mirrored by a few different sites. When you first install Annvix, you are given the choice of which mirror site to use to download package updates from; this information is used to create /etc/apt/sources.list which contains the information for the mirror site you have selected.

Contents

Apt Repository Setup

A typical sources.list file will look like:

rpm ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/annvix/releases x86_64 2_0_RELEASE 2_0_RELEASE-doc

This tells apt that you have an "rpm" repository defined, with the URL and path of the repository being ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/annvix/releases. The next bit identifies the architecture of the repository which can be either "i586" or "x86_64". Currently, Annvix only supports the 32bit and 64bit x86 (intel) architecture. Finally, the repositories are named; in this case "2_0_RELEASE" and "2_0_RELEASE-doc". This indicates that the repositories in question to use belong to the 2.0-RELEASE version.

Repository names can be versioned, as in the above example, or can be "current" (for the latest -CURRENT release) or "release" (for the latest -RELEASE release). Using a versioned repository, however, ensures that once a new -RELEASE version comes out, you aren't automatically upgrading to it.

Apt Basics

To update the package index, use:

$ sudo apt-get update

This of course assumes that you provide apt privileges via sudo; if not, these commands will need to be executed as the root user.

To upgrade new packages, use:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

This will only install new packages that already exist on the system, but will not install any new packages. This is a safe way to update. If you need to install packages that pull in new packages (such as when upgrading the kernel), use:

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This will do an upgrade, and will also install any updates that require new packages to satisfy dependencies. Using dist-upgrade is the only way that packages currently installed that require packages that are not currently installed will be upgraded.

To install new packages, use:

$ sudo apt-get install [package]

This will install package "package" any any dependencies it requires. For instance, if you wanted to install exim-db you would use:

$ sudo apt-get install exim-db

You can provide as many package names as you like to the install command; apt-get will install each one and their associated dependencies.

Finally, to remove a package, you should use:

$ sudo apt-get remove [package]

Documentation Packages

All documentation is provided in "-doc" sub-packages. When you install a package, say exim on any other distribution, you will typically get documentation associated with that package in /usr/share/doc/exim-4.66 (or whatever the version number happens to be). With Annvix, binary packages come with no documentation. To install documentation, you must specifically install the "-doc" package, which also implies you have the "-doc" repository available (in the above example, it would be "2_0_RELEASE-doc"). To install the exim documentation, use:

$ sudo apt-get install exim-doc

The documentation ends up in /usr/share/doc/[package]-[version].

Packages Available in Annvix

You can determine what packages are provided in Annvix by browsing the FTP mirrors or looking at the Release Notes for a specific version, and then looking at the package list. For instance, you can view the 2.0-RELEASE package list to see what packages are available for that version to install.

<< Return to User Guide





Sponsors: Cheap Flights - Mortgages - Loans - Loans