adding additonal packages to szalonna

[pidsley]

Now that a couple of people have Szalonna running on test machines, I'll tell you how I have been adding additional packages to the running system.

The easiest way is to simply unpack an Arch .xz package into the / directory. I usually do this with two machines -- I connect the Szalonna machine to my "main" machine over NFS, and use the main machine to browse the Arch package database and download packages.

Of course, this is only how I do this. You can use any method you like to get the Arch packages onto the Szalonna machine; even wget should work.

Once downloaded, I use "tar xvf <path/package.xz> -C /" on Szalonna to unpack the Arch package. This leaves a couple of control dotfiles in the / directory, but they are small and I don't worry about them. They have the same name for every package, so there is no danger of / filling up with dotfiles. Delete them if they bother you.

You can also use Debian packages. In this case, I use "ar -x <package.deb>" to unpack the deb, then use "tar xvf" to unpack the "data.gz" portion of the deb into the / directory.

And you can also just copy built executable files and libraries from a running system. This can be tricky, but it can be done if you are careful.

Szalonna has no compiler or git, so if you want to go that route you will first need to install the appropriate packages from Arch or Debian (or Slackware, but I have not yet tried that).

None of these methods does any dependency checking, so it may take several iterations before you get everything you need. Use "pkgfile" (on Arch) and "apt-file search" (on Debian) to find the package you need for a particular missing file if it is not readily apparent.

I'm sure there other and probably better ways to do all of this. These methods are only what I have tried so far (well, I also built pacman, but that's just silly). I expect other people will discover or invent completely different methods. Please share when you do!

[wuxmedia]

thanks for the overall insight, I should really try out this. get my head around packages and dependencies and such like.

[rhowaldt]

thanks pidsley, even though i might never try this out myself, i always enjoy reading about it and trying to understand concepts in theory. i have just one question: it seems much easier to me to, as you say, use wget to get Arch-packages onto the Szalonna machine directly, yet you choose to use a method where you need a second computer to do so. why is that? is it because you keep Szalonna off the internet? or do you have a different reason?

[pidsley]

^ Because Szalonna only has links as a browser, it is easier for me to browse the Arch package database using firefox on my main machine, download the packages there, and share the directory where they are downloaded using nfs to the Szalonna machine. Installing some things involves several iterations of download, install, search package database, download again, install again, etc. If I knew exactly what I needed I could use wget, but it's usually not that simple.

All my machines are networked using nfs, so I am used to treating files on any machine as if they were on all of them. This also means that I can keep all the downloaded Arch packages on one machine, and can then install them on any of the several Szalonna test installs I have running now.

Does that make sense?

[rhowaldt]

yes, that makes total sense. i think my idea of what seems easier might differ depending on a certain setup. from what you describe, wget isnt that much easier for you at all. thanks for explaining :)

[DebianJoe]

I'll throw in here that I've had some really great luck with building executables on one partition (very similar to what Pidsley mentioned above) and then simply moving them into the relevant location in szalonna via mounting. The worst issue being that some of the dynamic libraries for some binaries don't match others. I've had some luck with building static bins in those cases, but in other cases found that I probably didn't REALLY need that program anyhow.

Any extra disk-space used (especially via static builds) can be quickly justified with: "At least I don't have 2 copies of the same compiler and build tools."

;)