opt_depot
opt_depot is a suite of Perl scripts which makes it easy to
manage installed software across a wide range of client systems. opt_depot
makes it possible to keep all files associated with a program together
in one directory, so installation and de-installation is simple. opt_depot
is easy to manage, and provides a scheme for installing software in a truly
portable fashion; packages may be installed locally on client systems,
or kept in a central package archive for NFS access.
opt_depot was written by the Computer Science Division (CSD) at Applied Research Laboratories,
The University of Texas at Austin. Jeremy Thibeaux, Amy Shook, Jonathan Abbey, and Erik Grostic directly contributed to the code.
The Software
Web Documentation
The Man Pages
The Mailing Lists
Information on related software and techniques
- Carnegie
Mellon's Depot Software
- The inspiration for opt_depot. I've not looked at the Andrew
Depot package for a while now. We found Depot to be less flexible and more
complex than we wanted, with some basic design
decisions that gave us problems. It may be much better now.
- STORE -
A System for Third Party Software Installation and Maintenance
- A very well thought-out freely distributable UNIX software management
system from Norway. Much more extensive than opt_depot, but also
more complex to use.
- The ASIS Project - CERN
- A very detailed and well documented system, with sophisticated support
for package life cycles and integrated package documentation. Includes
a GUI mechanism for selecting and manipulating packages.
- Cicero
- NASA Langley Research Center
- LARC's Integrated Computing
Environment package solution, featuring cryptographic signing of package
descriptions. Cicero provides support for an environment in which trust
is an issue, and in which NFS mounting cannot be assumed.
Note that it appears that Cicero is not currently available for download
outside of NASA. Indications are that it may become so in the future.
- STOW -
Gnu Package Manager
- A simple, single-script system, generally similar to opt_depot. It
appears to be a bit less refined in some ways
than opt_depot. However, Stow is under the GPL, so it will likely garner
a good bit of popularity and improvements with time.
- LUDE - Logitheque Universitaire Distribuee et Extensible
- Recommended by merc@ackley.net.. LUDE is a project both to achieve
a standard package format and to build up a library of packaged software.
- Encap Package Management System
- A newly announced package management system that combines a symlink tree maintenance utility
with a RPM-like package format. Makes it possible to download and install a new package into
your /usr/local tree in one step. Seems similar to LUDE in this respect. Includes a number
of utilities and alternate implementations for tools to work with their package archive
format.
- The NEU SoftInst Project
- Apparently this has been around since at least 1994. It doesn't seem to have the opt_link
style NFS support, but it does have support for tools to automatically document installed
software.
- Graft
- Another implementation of the basic Depot idea. Looks like it innovates in its handling
of directories. Sort of similar to Stow, but more flexible about handling files
in the tree that did not come from package archives. Unlike most of these
packages, the graft script is intended to be manually run on a per-package basis.
- Reflect
- Another Depot-style tool, this one written entirely in Bash and assorted Unix utilities..
no C or Perl required. Has some of the nice features of opt_depot, including clean integration
with target directories containing non-reflect managed files and symlinks. Reflect adds a
rather innovative feature; Reflect allows per-package configuration files, and a package
may be configured so that particular files are linked into multiple locations in the
filesystem. In this way, Reflect is approaching the more location agnostic design of RPM.
Like Graft, Reflect is designed to be run manually on a package-by-package basis.
- SrcPkg
- This is a particularly innovative entry. SrcPkg is almost a 'reverse depot' tool; to use it,
one goes through a normal software install process, then runs srcpkg to identify the files that
were installed and replace them with symbolic links. Using SrcPkg,
large and complex software packages that are not depot-friendly can be depotized after
the fact in an automatic fashion.
- SpkgTool
- Now, here's an interesting one. SpkgTool actually provides a set of GUI tools to manage
the symbolic links for packages. Apparently inspired by Graft in the first instance, SpkgTool
also supports automated installation of tar files that conform to the autoconf standard.
Send comments or questions about the opt_depot scripts to
opt-depot@arlut.utexas.edu
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