Installing Binary Packages (Release 3.1.7 and below)

Minix 3.1.7 and below provides packman to manage binary packages. Newer releases uses pkgin and pkgsrc. See InstallingBinaryPackages for the details.

To install new packages, you will use the packman program. You must run packman as root.

Packman first will ask you if you want to update the package list via the network. If you have a working network connection, answer “Y”.

# packman
Checking for CD in /dev/c0d6p2.
Not found.
Update package list from network? (Y/n)

You can ignore the warning about not finding the CD if you plan on downloading packages over the network. Otherwise, you should insert a MINIX CD-ROM, and rerun packman.

Packman then will show you this informational message:

Showing you a list of packages using more. Press q when
you want to leave the list.
Press RETURN to continue..

Press RETURN.

Packman now will present to you a list of programs to install. You can scroll through that package list by using the SPACE bar, arrow keys, or VI-style navigation.
Then, select the packages that you wish to install. Here are some examples of how you can list packages:

Format examples: '3', '3,6', '3-9', '3-9,11-15', 'all'

/!\ Selecting all is not recommended, as there are many packages that would be installed, and they would require significant disk space.

After you've specified the packages that you want to install, packman will ask you if you want to install the sources for the given packages:

Get source(s) too? (y/N)

You safely can select “N” here. You probably don't want/need the sources for those packages.

Packman then will install the selected packages:

Retrieving 11 (bash-3.0) from primary location into /usr/tmp/packages ..
Retrieved ok. Installing ..
Installed ok.

Showing you a list of packages using more. Press q when
you want to leave the list.
Press RETURN to continue..

Press RETURN. Packman then will allow you to install more packages. If you are done installing packages, hit the “q” key twice (once to exit out of the package listing, and once again to exit packman altogether).

<!> Note: Packman does not handle dependencies; therefore, you will need to manage dependencies manually. For instance, gcc requires binutils and gcc-libs, so you must install gcc-libs, binutils, and gcc.