Stowpkg: ports system based on GNU Stow

A portable, non-conflicting Unix package manager built atop of GNU Stow.

Features

Non-conflicting with any other package management in use (distro-specific, npm, pip, etc).
Multi-target support: you can keep may isolated and independent software trees.
Multi-distro support: works for any GNU/Linux and possible any BSD-variant.
Repository signature verification using GnuPG and signed git commits.
Small enough so everybody can learn how a package manager works.

Installation

Simply clone it and add to your $PATH:

git clone https://git.fluxo.info/stowpkg

You can also verify the latest commit's OpenPGP signature:

/usr/bin/git -C stowpkg verify-commit HEAD

You'll also need some dependencies. On a Debian-like system those can be installed using

sudo apt install stow build-essential

Usage

stowpkg install   <package>           # install   packages from source
stowpkg switch    <package> <version> # switch a  package to another available version
stowpkg remove    <package>           # remove    packages
stowpkg reinstall <package>           # reinstall packages
stowpkg build                         # simple    package  builder (./configure && make && make install)
stowpkg search                        # list      packages available on ports
stowpkg list                          # list      packages installed
stowpkg sources                       # list      program  sources available
stowpkg binaries                      # list      program  binaries available
stowpkg purge     <package>           # purge     packages
stowpkg upgrade   <package>           # upgrade   packages
stowpkg update                        # update    ports    repository

Running installed applications

Make sure to include stowpkg package tree into your PATH, MANPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc.

Configuration

Use ~/.config/stowpkg do put any default parameters. Current supported params include

BASE: defaults to <stowpkg-repo>/tree/<architecture>, but can be configured to anything like /usr/local with corresponding packages installed at /usr/local/stow.

Filesystem layout

Current ports tree is distributed directly along with stowpkg source repository. A binary repository has the following layout starting from $BASE (like /usr/local):

{bin,lib,man,share,etc,src}: usual Unix paths
stow
    package_name-VERSION

What it does

If you want to do it manually:

sudo apt install <luakit-depencies>
git clone https://github.com/luakit/luakit
cd luakit
make PREFIX=/usr/local/stow/luakit
sudo make PREFIX=/usr/local/stow/luakit install
cd /usr/local/stow/
sudo stow luakit

Further development

Automatic application patching.
Source code verification using multiple methods (commit hash, checksums, OpenPGP).
Port releases using git branches and tags, allowing to swtich the current installed applications' versions by doing a git checkout and a stowpkg switch: that way you could easily switch all packages to the versions shipped in a given branch.

Other commands can easily be implemented:

stowpkg upstream <package> # check packages versions at upstream

Also, per-architecture binary package support might be implemented using git-annex and GnuPG signatures, giving us commands like

stowpkg pack  <package> # pack an installed package
stowpkg fetch <package> # fetch package from the repo