qingu/packman

This is a tool to install and manage packages that are needed when developing geoscientific models.

Introduction

Packman is an easy-to-use tool to manage the installation of packages and setup of environment in remote server (or local computer). The reasons why this tool is created are:

• Most server admin is lazy, so the versions of Linux and the softwares (e.g. GCC) are fairly low! It causes much headache when porting program.
• Some useful packages are missing, e.g. GIT, NetCDF.
• Fortran compiler messes up package versions.
• Linux package managers (e.g. rpm, apt) are too conservative.

In Mac, we have the wonderful homebrew, which is truely addictive, but the port to Linux linuxbrew is not really ready for serious use. With all these pains in my ass, I decided to create a tool packman on my own. The final goal is no matter how messy the server is (we do not give a shit!), we could use packman to setup the necessary development environment. So we can focus on our real problems, not install the packages over and over again!

I used my time to save your time, so consider make a donation to make me add more functions! 

Usage

Grab packman in whatever way you like (through git or get zip file). Add the following line into your BASH configuration file (e.g. .bashrc):

source <path_to_packman>/setup.sh

First you must collect all the packages from internet by typing:

$ packman collect <path_to_config_file>

where you need to set package_root at least. When the remote server can not access internet, you can do this in your local computer, and upload packman with the downloaded packages onto server. Second you need to edit a configuration for packman as:

package_root = <where_is_packages>
build_root = <where_to_build_packages>
install_root = <where_to_install>
c_compiler = gcc
cxx_compiler = g++
fortran_compiler = gfortran
#include_packages = all
#exclude_packages = none

where exclude_packages is the list for packages that are not to be installed, and include_packages is the opposite. The two parameters can not be set at the same time. After configuring, run:

$ packman install <path_to_config_file>

The packages will be built in order. When you want to use the packages installed by packman, you have two options. One is through the following command:

$ packman setup_env <path_to_config_file>

You will go into a new BASH session where the packages can be used or linked. The other may be more convenient in your BASH configuration file (e.g. .bashrc):

source <path_to_install_root>/bashrc

By now, you will have fresh packages (no more GCC 4.1.2!).

Available packages

The following is a list of the packages that I have tried to built with success on two Linux servers and a Mac server:

package name	version
antlr	2.7.7
armadillo	4.100.2
cdo	1.6.3
cmake	2.8.12.2
cmor	2.9.1
curl	7.36.0
gcc	4.8.2
git	1.9.2
grib-api (in grib)	1.12.1
hdf5 (with C++ and Fortran API)	1.8.12
jasper	1.900.1
lapack	3.5.0
ncl	6.2.0
nco	4.4.3
netcdf-c (in netcdf)	4.3.1.1
netcdf-cxx4 (in netcdf)	4.2.1
netcdf-fortran (in netcdf)	4.2
openblas	0.2.9.rc2
szip	2.1
texinfo	5.2
udunits	2.1.24
uuid	1.6.2

More packages can be added gradually by me or by community.

Authors

• Li Dong [email protected]