A Short and Sweet Slackware Package Creation Tutorial

or... 'How to work with a .tar.gz distribution more easily than with that blamed RPM' ;-). The instructions below work with the majority of autoconf-enabled source distributions.

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Package Creation

Step 1. Create a work directory for package creation

# mkdir -p /pkgcreate/usr/local

Step 2. Unpack the source distribution, configure it, then compile.

# tar -zxvf foobar-a.b.c.tar.gz
# cd foobar-a.b.c
# ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
# make

3. 'make install' the created files to the package creation directory by using one (or all) of the 'make install' variables shown below.

# make install prefix=/pkgcreate/usr/local

# make install DESTDIR=/pkgcreate/usr/local

# make install ROOT=/pkgcreate/usr/local

# make install prefix=/pkgcreate/usr/local \
               DESTDIR=/pkgcreate/usr/local \
               ROOT=/pkgcreate/usr/local

Step 4. Build the tarball package

# cd /pkgcreate
# makepkg foobar-a.b.c-i686-1.tgz

(usually follow the suggestions to create symbolic links via the script and to NOT change ownership attributes of the files)

Step 5. Presto you have your tarball package! Stow it away for safekeeping.

# mv foobar-a.b.c-i686-1.tgz /your-directory-of-choice

(I use /root/slackpacks)

Package Installation

# cd /root/slackpacks
# installpkg foobar-a.b.c-i686-1.tgz

Package Removal

Removing your installed package is as clean and easy as

# removepkg foobar-a.b.c-i686-1

Note: removepkg will not delete any files that you have modified.

Tip

Always clean up the package creation directory for use next time, even for recreating the same package again.

# cd /pkgcreate
# rm -r *

Other Resources

For a much more thorough discussion of Slackware package creation (as well as a nice repository of pre-built Slackware packages, you may refer to the following pages over at http://linuxpackages.net:

1. (Slackware) Package HOW-TO
2. The Perfect (Slackware) Package

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© 2006 by Andy Sy
last updated: 2006-02-01