Installing Source Packages

pkgsrc is used to build third-party software. This page describes how to use pkgsrc.

Before diving in, you should be aware of a few things:

• precompiled binary packages are available for many applications. This can save a lot of time and headaches. See Installing Binary Packages for details.
• a list of packages that are expected to build under Minix 'current' is available here: /usr/pkgsrc/minix/limited_list.pbulk Other packages either haven't been port to Minix or haven't been tested on Minix yet.
• pkgsrc-current tracks minix-current. For best results, update the base system to current.

• 1 GB of hard disk space for the pkgsrc tree (as of April 8, 2013). Additional space is required to build software.
• 512MB of RAM or more. Some applications such as gcc need more than 512MB of RAM to build.

Git is required to download the pkgsrc tree and GCC is required to compile software.

# pkgin install scmgit-base binutils gcc44

To set up the pkgsrc tree:

# cd /usr
# make pkgsrc-create

<!> This is all that is needed to prepare the system to build software with pkgsrc. The MINIX installation comes pre-bootstrapped. Do NOT run the bootstrap script that comes with pkgsrc.

To update the pkgsrc tree in the future:

# cd /usr
# make pkgsrc-update

This will download any changes (new versions of packages, patches, etc.).

<!> It is important to update your copy of the pkgsrc tree using this method, instead of git pull. This update method may perform additional steps, such as updating your mk.conf file.

All pkgsrc operations should be done with bmake.

To build a package, misc/figlet in this example, you need to cd to that directory and do a bmake install.

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/misc/figlet
# bmake install

This installs figlet in /usr/pkg/bin.

See the official pkgsrc guide for complete details.