This chapter gives a quick run-through on the package system. For the information that actually goes into a package - the packaging - see the section called “Description File (.desc)”.

T2 is built out of shell scripts. These scripts access the files in config/ to build the packages from source.

These scripts run with quite some environment variables being set (see the section called “Environment Variables”).

There will come a day when you want to contribute a package to the T2 tree - because you find you are builting that package from source every time you do a clean install.

Mastering the package system is a good idea if you deploy similar configurations across machines. If that is your daily work your job title may be 'system administrator'.

Packages usually get quickly accepted into the T2 SVN trunk source tree and even if not local packages can still be useful.

To get a grip on how the Build scripts work the best thing to do is take one of the smaller standard packages and build them by hand. Start changing parameters and see what happens in /var/adm/logs and the src.* trees.

./t2 build package

By studying existing config files you'll find there are a number of interesting features.

Many standard configure type build doesn't even need scripting. T2 does that all for you.

When packages need special configuration parameters or command sequences write them directly into the shell script.