Packagetastic

Summary

Packagetastic is a Linux packaging system, that works with dpkg and rpm.

How it Works

Someone creates a stem file for a program they want to package. Packagetastic then builds the program and installs it, by talking directly to the dpkg or rpm database.

Development

All development is done over at https://launchpad.net/packagetastic. The mailing list is located at: https://lists.launchpad.net/packagetastic-developers/.

Packagetastic is written in Python, and makes use of the Python Expect Library(pexpect) and the Python Mako Template Library(mako).

Packagetastic is licensed under the GPL version 2.

Status

Very experimental. Can build some Python, C, and Mono packages. Some stem files are broken. We need more stems for basic packages.

Getting Started

Follow the steps in the README file. You basically can do this to get started:

1. Setup your distro's native package building environment.
2. Get a project's stem file, and put it in the "stems" directory.
3. Tell Packagetastic to generate a Deb/RPM package using the stem file.
4. Grab the package from the "packages" directory.

Future

1. Generate packages for Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, OpenSuse, Ubuntu, and Mandriva.
2. A new binary package format that can be installed on all these systems.