Pacman 2.123

Introduction

Pacman is a package manager. With Pacman, you can transparently fetch, install and update software packages. The packages can be any mix of tarballs rpm or other types. The advantage of using pacman is that all the annoying details of doing this, such as:

are taken care of for you.

Ideally, if something in this procedure doesn't work, you get to complain to the person who setup the "software cache" rather than fixing it yourself. That way, if a problem comes up, it can get solved once rather than forcing everyone to fix it individually.

Getting Started

To use Pacman, you need a unix system and Pacman will also insist upon Python 1.5.2 or later. Given this, just unzip and untar the pacman-XXX.tar.gz file, cd into the directory containing README and source the file setup.csh or setup.sh depending on your shell. You're now ready to try the tutorials.

  1. Tutorial: Getting Some Software
  2. Tutorial: Making your own "caches"
  3. Pacman File Syntax
  4. Recognizing Natively Installed Software
  5. Being a Cache Manager
  6. FAQ
  7. Release Notes

Copyright by Saul Youssef, 2003. You are free to use Pacman for commercial or non-commercial purposes. You are free to redistribute the current or any previous version of Pacman as is (although this is usually not a good idea). You may redistributed a modified version of Pacman only with Saul Youssef's permission. Pacman is offered as is with no warranty of any kind.

A number of people have helped Pacman in one way or another, none more than Alain Roy of the University of Wisconsin. More information about the epic saga of Pacman will come with the next major release, coming soon...

If you're finding Pacman helpful or have questions, comments or problems, or if you just want to say hi, drop me an email at youssef@bu.edu.


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