My slashpackage-foreign snippets

Tue Jun 12 00:00:00 CDT 2007

The *.sh files in this directory are slashpackage-foreign snippets for use with Paul Jarc's spftools package management system.

I can hear you asking, "What's that?" It's a handful of shell scripts for shoehorning non-slashpackage software into the /package hierarchy. Okay, that explanation probably failed miserably to dispel your confusion. And that's alright; at this time, spf-tools isn't for everyone. If you don't have a login account on a Unix-like system, it's definitely not for you, and even if you do, you're probably better off simply using the package management system provided by your OS distributor.

So why would anyone want to use spf-tools or these snippets? For first, spf-tools works just fine alongside other package management systems, so it can be used on a limited basis without risk of breaking an existing system. For secondly, it can be configured to install to ~/package instead of /package, so it's great for systems where you don't have root. (This web server is one such system, and it's running Tcl installed in precisely this manner.) For thirdly, it's actually easier than the standard "./configure && make && make install" rigamarole, and it automatically handles its own dependencies. For fourthly, I can't think of another reason, but you shouldn't need another reason to go check out Paul's site.