Extending Pkgsrc

While pkgsrc contains an extensive collection of software out of the box, there are times when there are packages that have not yet been packaged or have build failures on Hitch Hiker. For those feeling somewhat adventurous, here are two ways to extend the available packages, providing software not in the default distribution or alternative packages with Hitch Hiker specific bug fixes.

pkgsrc-wip

The pkgsrc-wip project is a collection of work in progress packages which for one reason or another have not yet been accepted into the main distribution. Much of the time these packages are perfectly functional, but might not work on every OS that pkgsrc supports. The pkgsrc-wip repository is managed via git, and due to the main pkgsrc framework being managed under CVS it is safe to clone pkgsrc-wip right into pkgsrc.

cd /usr/pkgsrc
git clone https://pkgsrc.org/wip/ wip

This will put all of pkgsrc-wip right inside pkgsrc at /usr/pkgsrc/wip. Once there, using wip is exactly the same as using the rest of pkgsrc.

pkgsrc-hhl

The pkgsrc-hhl project is and extension to pkgsrc containing packages that are intended specifically for Hitch Hiker. These packages may add functionality not available in pkgsrc, fix build issues, or integrate packages from pkgsrc better with Hitch Hiker. Installation and usage of pkgsrc-hhl is similar to pkgsrc-wip.

cd /usr/pkgsrc
git clone https://git.hitchhiker-linux.org/hitchhiker/pkgsrc-hhl.git hhl