Prepare for Packaging
Setting up Packager file
In order to utilise the build system, you must first set up a configuration file that has your packager details.
This file lives in the .config/solus
folder of your home directory. You will need to create the .config/solus
folder as well as the inner packager
file. Inside the packager file, you need two keys, Name
and Email
. This is used when generating the machine
file so that the packager details are stored within the resulting binary package.
[Packager]
Name=Your Name Here
Email=your.email@address
Installing Development Tools
We need to install a few things in order to get started with packaging.
The main packages we need are provided by the system.devel
component.
Namely:
ypkg
the program that actually builds packagesmake
used by our build tools for scripting
sudo eopkg it -c system.devel
Additonally, we need a few more tools to carry out the packaging process:
git
is used for version control of the solus sourcesarcanist
is required to submit patches for packages to the Solus Dev Trackersolbuild
is a lightweight container environment for building packages repeatablysolbuild-config-unstable
sets up solbuild for working with theunstable
repository
sudo eopkg it git arcanist solbuild solbuild-config-unstable
Setting Up solbuild
The solbuild
tool must first be initialized with a base image. All builds thereafter will use this as a base, and construct a temporary overlay root to save on time and disk space in builds.
Initializing solbuild
Next, you need to initialize solbuild via:
sudo solbuild init
This will take some time as it downloads and prepares the image.
Updating solbuild
It is a good idea to keep the base image updated. It will help reduce build times by not having to repeatedly download updates to packages in the base image, and will strictly need to pull down the packages your build needs.
To update solbuild, run:
sudo solbuild update
Setting up common
Next you need to set up common
, a set of make scripts that enables you to more easily manage, build, check, and publish packages.
You need to clone the common repository with git by doing git clone https://dev.getsol.us/source/common.git
in the same directory you will have sub-folders for packages you are building.
Next you need to set up symlinks. Do this from the same directory you executed the git
command:
ln -sv common/Makefile.common .
ln -sv common/Makefile.toplevel Makefile
ln -sv common/Makefile.iso .
Next, inside the folder of the package you are building, run: echo "include ../Makefile.common" > Makefile
This will enable you to call make
commands from inside the package folder.
Your folder should look something similar to this:
| common/
| your-package/
| - Makefile
| Makefile
| Makefile.common
| Makefile.iso
Building packages (Solus only)
After setting up common, you can now build the package. Note that build dependencies and such will be installed locally (in the chroot environment).
make
You will be prompted to enter your password by sudo so dependencies may be downloaded and the necessary eopkg files may be generated.
Once you’ve achieved a successful build, the resulting .eopkg
files will be moved to the current directory, along with the machine file, pspec_*.xml
(currently pspec_x86_64.xml
). We recommending checking the contents of your
generated eopkg file(s) to ensure everything is located in the appropriate locations. You can do this by using lseopkg file_name.eopkg
.