Ttuuxx's PET packages for Jaunty

Ttuuxx has been helping by compiling applications that can populate the 'pet_packages-5' repository on ibiblio.org. He has been announcing these on the forum:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=41937

I am now organising this, and will probably upload some of the PET packages to ibiblio tomorrow, along with the database file 'Packages-puppy-5-official'. I will get the ball rolling on this, then WhoDo can take over.

It's pretty straight forward, just a matter of checking out the PET package, if ok then upload it and add the database entry to 'Packages-puppy-5-official'.

Those database entries can be easily created with the 'petspec' utility, and ttuuxx has been posting them to the forum. That's fine, but I would like to suggest a bit of attention to the detail in a couple of the fields. For example, here is what ttuuxx posted for the Gimp package:

gimp-2.6.6-i486-uj|gimp|2.6.6-i486-uj||BuildingBlock|20000K|pet_packages-5|gimp-2.6.6-i486-uj.pet|+gtk2|Image Editor|ubuntu|jaunty|5|

In every case, ttuuxx has left the menu category as "BuildingBlock", which is ok for packages that are "building block" types of packages. For Gimp however, this is going to need a menu entry and the most appropriate choice would be "Graphic". The petspec utility has a pull-down list to choose menu category, so making an appropriate choice is pretty easy. You could choose "BuildingBlock" for any package that does not require a menu entry, or leave the field empty.

The other field where ttuuxx has not bothered to change much is the dependencies. If all dependencies are definitely going to already be in Puppy, then this field can be left blank. So, the "+gtk2" is not really needed. I notice that ttuuxx has left the original example dependencies of "+aiksaurus,+gtk2" in that field, which is not appropriate -- that was an example for the Abiword package.

So, if the Gimp package does not need anything more than what is already in Jaunty Puppy, then we can leave the dependencies field blank, so the database entry could reduce to this:

gimp-2.6.6-i486-uj|gimp|2.6.6-i486-uj||Graphic|20000K|pet_packages-5|gimp-2.6.6-i486-uj.pet||Image Editor|ubuntu|jaunty|5|

Dependencies
To fill in the dependencies field, just put a comma-delimited list of package names, with a '+' in front of each name. If any package might clash with your package, put a '-' prefix. Note, I am not yet supporting version information in this field.

If you want a complete list of what packages are built-in to Puppy, look at file /root/.packages/woof-installed-packages.

dir2pet/petspec broken
However, ttuuxx can be excused for any laxity in creating these dababase entries, as the integration of the 'petspec' utility with 'dir2pet' is somewhat broken.

When you run the 'dir2pet' utility to convert a directory to a PET package, for example:
# dir2pet abiword-1.2.3
The script asks a couple of questions then brings up the 'petspec' GUI.

The problem is that some of the fields in the 'petspec' GUI window are not filled in properly. The amiss fields are the size, full PET package name and the dependencies.

Then, when exiting from 'petspec', it is supposed to write the database entry to a file 'pet.specs' inside the package. It does create a file, but it is zero bytes.

There was also a problem with 'dir2pet' if the package already has a .desktop file. I have enhanced the script to recognise a pre-existing .desktop file.

I have fixed these bugs.

Tags: woof