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Pkgsrc
Package manager for Unix-like operating systems From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.[3]
As of September 2025[update], pkgsrc currently contains over 29,000 packages[4] 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,[5] macOS,[6] Solaris, and QNX.[7]
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.[8]
Several vendors, including MNX.io, provide binary packages for popular operating systems, including macOS and Linux.[6][5]
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Supported platforms
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History
On October 3, 1997, NetBSD developers Alistair Crooks and Hubert Feyrer created pkgsrc[1] based on the FreeBSD ports system and intended to support the NetBSD packages collection. It was officially released as part of NetBSD 1.3[9] on January 4, 1998. DragonFly BSD used pkgsrc as its official package system from version 1.4 in 2006, to 3.4 in 2013.[10][3]
On 2017-09-12, a commit message policy that accommodates DVCS was established by the project.[11]
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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.[12]
As of 2018, several vendors provide pre-built binary packages for several platforms:
- Since at least 2014,[13] Joyent has provided binary packages for SmartOS/illumos, macOS,[6] and Enterprise Linux (CentOS/Oracle/Red Hat/Scientific).[5][13] Packages are provided on a rolling release basis from the trunk (HEAD, in CVS terminology) of pkgsrc, with updates every few days;[6] additionally, quarterly stable releases of pkgsrc for Joyent's own SmartOS are also provided (dating back to 2012Q4).[14]
- Since 2017,[15] University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee has provided binary packages for NetBSD, RHEL/CentOS, and Darwin/macOS.[16][17] 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.[15]
References
External links
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