This is a pacscript:
name="foo"
version="1.0"
url="https://github.com/Henryws/foo/archive/refs/tags/1.0.zip"
build_depends="vim gcc"
depends="neofetch plasma"
breaks="libfoo-git"
description=“foo is the ultimate program capable of foo and bar!”
hash=“2c26b46b68ffc68ff99b453c1d30413413422d706483bfa0f98a5e886266e7ae”
removescript="yes"
optdepends=("bar: not foo"
"alacritty: a blazing fast terminal")
maintainer="Mr. Person <mr.person.protonmail.com>"
prepare() {
./autogen.sh
}
build() {
./configure
make -j$(nproc)
}
install() {
sudo make install DESTDIR=/usr/src/pacstall
}
postinst(){
echo "Do post install stuff here"
}
removescript(){
rm somedir
}I will be using the word pkgname as the name of your package.
the first variable is name. It is what pacstall records and is the most important. The contents of name, (pkgname) will be in /usr/src/pacstall/pkgname (where pacstall puts files to symlink to the system) and /var/log/pacstall_installed/pkgname (a file which holds metadata like version number, date installed, description, etc). Keep it lowercase
The next is version. It is the version number (obviously). It should (but not required) be using semver. As long as the version number can be incremented, it works. When you change this version to a higher number, it will trigger an upgrade when you run sudo pacstall -Up.
url is the url of the package. It can end in .tar.xz, .zip, or .git. git is not recommended unless the maintainer does not have a releases page or tags (see st-lukesmith). When using github, use releases or tags (but try in that order).
build_depends is the packages needed to compile the package. They are Ubuntu apt package names.
depends are packages that are required to run, but not to compile. If a github page just says ‘here are the dependencies’, try to sort them first, but if not, put them in depends.
description is a description of the package. Try to keep the description as close to the original as possible (e.g neofetch’s is A command-line system information tool written in bash 3.2+.)
breaks are where you put the packages that will break if you install this package. An example would be foo and foo-git. They both install to the same files, but different sources. It is not needed unless you are making a -git package or -bin.
hash is the output of running sha256sum 1.0.zip (from the example above). You just need the number and not the number + file name.
removescript is a variable that is used when you want to signify that something should be done after a package is uninstalled. It should be yes or not in the script at all
optdepends is where you put optional dependencies. Pacstall will ask the user if they want to install them after the package finishes installing.
maintainer is where you put yourself in the format shown above: name <email.email.com>. This makes it easy for people to contact maintainers about issues
The prepare function is what you run to prepare a package. You don’t need to cd into the package source directory because pacstall will do that already.
The build function is what compiles the package. Use multicore as much as possible. To get the number of cores in a system, run nproc. You can use that in combination with -j$(nproc) to compile on multicore (make -j$(nproc)).
The install function installs the package. The most important thing is to install to /usr/src/pacstall/pkgname. An example with make would be sudo make install DESTDIR=/usr/src/pacstall/pkgname.
postinst is what commands should be run after pkg is installed. If you don't need it, leave it out
removescript is what commands should be run after pkg is uninstalled. The contents will be remotely sourced when you trigger a -R pkg flag. This is NOT a script uninstalls the package, just what should be run. Here's an example of how that would be done
You need to save it as pkgname.pacscript. To add a package to pacstall-programs, fork it and create a directory in packages called pkgname and add the pkgname.pacscript inside it. Then send me a pull request.
You can test it by cd'ing into the directory holding pkgname.pacscript and running sudo pacstall -Il pkgname. If it works, good! If not, pacstall should tell you what went wrong
If you need (for some reason) to download files that aren't part of the package (if it didn't ship a .desktop, for example), use GitHub Gists. When you download it in your pacscript, use wget -q <gist> so there is no output. If you need to upload an image (for whatever reason), use postimg.cc.
Lastly, do not ask the user for any input unless absolutely necessary. Use external variables to detect what you need to know before asking the user.
When you complete your script, fork this repo and add your script to packages/pkgname/pkgname.pacscript. Open a PR here and make the title: "Add pkgname" with the label Package Add. Please do one PR per package as the auto checker to make sure pacstall can install it works.
When you want to update your package, make sure you are on the latest commit (fetch upstream) and change the version, url, and hash (if used). Then make a PR and use the label update pkg