Skip to main content

Your First Package Update

This page will guide you through the steps required to build your first package. This is really a test to make sure that your build environment is set up correctly. You will clone an existing package, build it, then install it, and finally remove it.

Cloning and building nano​

For this example we will use the text editor nano.

Change to your packaging directory. Your directory may have a different name or location:

cd ~/solus-packages

Switch to the directory containing the nano recipe:

cd packages/n/nano

Alternatively, if you've set up the Monorepo Helper Functions you can replace the above to steps by these simple commands:n

gotosoluspkgs
gotopkg nano

Increase the release number by one ("bump" the package) and then check the results:

go-task bump
git diff

You should see output from git similar to the following:

diff --git a/package.yml b/package.yml
index 2ff1756..4bc344c 100644
--- a/package.yml
+++ b/package.yml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 name       : nano
 version    : '7.2'
-release    : 161
+release    : 162
 source     :
     - https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v7/nano-7.2.tar.xz : 86f3442768bd2873cec693f83cdf80b4b444ad3cc14760b74361474fc87a4526
 homepage   : https://www.nano-editor.org

Next, build the package:

go-task

You will be prompted to enter your password by sudo, and the solbuild tool will build the package. If the build is successful, you will have a nano package file with a name like nano-7.2-161-1-x86_64.eopkg. Run the ls tool to check the exact name:

$ ls
abi_used_libs     files       package.yml
abi_used_symbols  nano-7.2-162-1-x86_64.eopkg  pspec_x86_64.xml

Congratulations! You have successfully built your first package on Solus.

Installing your new nano package​

To install your new nano package, run the following command. Your filename will probably be slightly different.

This is done so you can test that the package works as expected. Each package submission will require you to describe what testing you did.

sudo eopkg it nano-7.2-162-1-x86_64.eopkg

Testing nano is pretty easy. Testing other packages may be more complicated, depending on what they do.

To test your newly built nano package, simply run it on command line, then make sure you can edit and save a file.

Returning to the repository version (optional)​

It is a good idea to remove the package you built, and return to the repository version, once you are done testing.

sudo eopkg it --reinstall nano