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pkgsrc

Developer(s)	Alistair Crooks, Hubert Feyrer and Johnny C. Lam
Initial release	January 4, 1998; 26 years ago (1998-01-04)
Stable release	2024Q4 / 3 January 2025; 0 days ago (3 January 2025)
Repository	github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc.git
Written in	C, Unix shell
Operating system	Unix-like
Type	Package management system
License	BSD License
Website	www.pkgsrc.org

pkgsrc (package source) is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently; in 1999, support for Solaris was added, followed by support for other operating systems.

pkgsrc currently contains over 22,000 packages and includes most popular open-source software. It is the native package manager on NetBSD, SmartOS and MINIX 3, and is portable across 23 different operating systems, including AIX, various BSD derivatives, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, macOS, Solaris, and QNX.

There are multiple ways to install programs using pkgsrc. The pkgsrc bootstrap contains a traditional ports collection that utilizes a series of makefiles to compile software from source. Another method is to install pre-built binary packages via the pkg_add and pkg_delete tools. A high-level utility named pkgin also exists, and is designed to automate the installation, removal, and update of binary packages in a manner similar to Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool.

Several vendors, including MNX.io, provide binary packages for popular operating systems, including macOS and Linux.

Supported platforms

History

On October 3, 1997, NetBSD developers Alistair Crooks and Hubert Feyrer created pkgsrc based on the FreeBSD ports system and intended to support the NetBSD packages collection. It was officially released as part of NetBSD 1.3 on January 4, 1998. DragonFly BSD used pkgsrc as its official package system from version 1.4 in 2006, to 3.4 in 2013.

On 2017-09-12, a commit message policy that accommodates DVCS was established by the project.

Packages

The NetBSD Foundation provides official, pre-built binary packages for multiple combinations of NetBSD and pkgsrc releases, and occasionally for certain other operating systems as well.

As of 2018, several vendors provide pre-built binary packages for several platforms:

• Since at least 2014, Joyent has provided binary packages for SmartOS/illumos, macOS, and Enterprise Linux (CentOS/Oracle/Red Hat/Scientific). Packages are provided on a rolling release basis from the trunk (HEAD, in CVS terminology) of pkgsrc, with updates every few days; additionally, quarterly stable releases of pkgsrc for Joyent's own SmartOS are also provided (dating back to 2012Q4).

• Since 2017, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee has provided binary packages for NetBSD, RHEL/CentOS, and Darwin/macOS. Packages are only built from the quarterly releases of pkgsrc, aiding use in long-term experiments, where stability and reproducibility of the findings is of the essence.

References

1. ^ "10 years of pkgsrc - pkgsrc and the concepts of package management 1997-2007 (part 1)". www.netbsd.org. The NetBSD Foundation. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
2. Jonathan Perkin (3 January 2025). "Announcing the pkgsrc-2024Q4 branch". Retrieved 3 January 2025.
3. ^ David Chisnall (2006-10-06). "NetBSD: Not Just for Toasters". InformIT. Prentice Hall Professional. Retrieved 2019-07-25.
4. ^ "Joyent Packages Documentation - Install On Linux". Joyent. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
5. ^ "Joyent Packages Documentation - Install On macOS". Joyent. Archived from the original on 2018-10-06. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
6. Perkin, Jonathan (2018-10-05). "Announcing the pkgsrc-2018Q3 release". NetBSD. Retrieved 2018-10-10.
7. "pkgin, a binary package manager for pkgsrc".
8. "Information about NetBSD 1.3".
9. Dillon, Matthew (2005-08-31). "PKGSRC will be officially supported as of the next release". DragonFly users mailing list.
10. Thomas Klausner (2017-09-12). "pkgsrc Commit Message Policy". pkgsrc-users@ (Mailing list). NetBSD. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
11. "Index of pub/PKGSRC/Packages/".
12. ^ "Joyent's packages, available for SmartOS/illumos, Linux, and OSX". Archived from the original on 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
13. "Index of /Packages/".
14. ^ "Re: Pkgsrc binary packages now available for scientific computing". pkgsrc-users (Mailing list). NetBSD. 2017-08-01. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
15. "mirror1.hpc.uwm.edu/pkgsrc/". Retrieved 2018-10-11.
16. "Software Management". University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, High Performance Computing dept. Retrieved 2018-10-11.

External links

• Official website
• A web interface for pkgsrc
• pkgsrc-wip – a project to get more people actively involved with pkgsrc
• pkgsrcCon: An annual conference focusing on pkgsrc
• /r/pkgsrc on Reddit

• Console applications
• Free package management systems
• Linux package management-related software
• NetBSD
• Software using the BSD license
• Unix package management-related software
• Utilities for Linux
• Utilities for macOS