sbotools

sbotools is a set of Perl scripts providing a ports-like automation interface to SlackBuilds.org. The tools are:

• sbocheck: Fetch the latest version of SlackBuilds.org repository; check for version updates, build number changes and out-of-tree installed SlackBuilds.
• sboclean: Remove cruft by cleaning source archives, build directories and saved build options.
• sboconfig: A command line interface for changing settings.
• sbofind: Search the local copy of the repository.
• sbohints: Query and modify the blacklist and optional dependency requests.
• sboinstall: Install SlackBuilds with their dependencies; handle compat32 packages and build from templates.
• sboremove: Interactively remove installed SlackBuilds along with any unused dependencies.
• sboupgrade: Upgrade previously-installed SlackBuilds.

Features include dependency handling, using a custom git branch for the upstream repository, reverse dependency search and rebuild, gpg verification and more. See sbotools(1) for a startup guide.

This repository is for continuing sbotools development, and was forked from the pink-mist repository, which covered development from version 0.1 through version 2.7. A debt of gratitude is owed to the original author, Jacob Pipkin, longtime maintainer Andreas Guldstrand and major contributor Luke Williams. This software would not exist without their efforts.

To make sbotools packages from the master branch, see sbotools-git-slackbuild. For release sbotools, a SlackBuild is available at SlackBuilds.org.

Changes

• Post-Release

  • Build.pm: When distcleaning, do not delete files that are needed later in the queue
  • sbohints: With --query, also report scripts that are optional dependencies; more grammatical output
  • Allow non-root users to call sbofind, non-destructive sbocheck, sboconfig and sbohints flags, -h and -v
    • Thanks to Slack Coder for the idea.
  • Install an SBO::Lib(3) summary man page; add exit code information to the other man 3 pages
  • sbocheck: Accept bundled flags (e.g. -gn)

• 3.4.1 - 2025-01-29

  • Bugfix: Use md5sum-specific subdirectories for distfiles to avoid improper overwriting
    • Thanks to tuxuser1 for the report.
  • sboclean: Adjust distfile handling to reflect new directory structure
  • Bugfix: Actually remove the package-* directory
  • Bugfix: DISTCLEAN should not override NOCLEAN

• 3.4 - 2025-01-22

  • sboconfig: Run without flags or options to use an interactive menu
  • sboupgrade: Do not attempt to upgrade the build queue if the requested script does not need an upgrade
  • sbocheck: Display the installed build number for the build number check
  • Add setting STRICT_UPGRADES: Except for override packages, only upgrade when the version or build number is higher
    • Thanks to jansucan and drbeco for the request.
  • sboinstall: Use --reverse-rebuild to rebuild all reverse dependencies of a script
  • sbofind: Indicate if a script is blacklisted
  • sbohints: A new tool for modifying and querying the blacklist and optional dependency requests
  • sboinstall: Always give a distinct warning prompt when a package without the _SBo tag would be replaced by adding it to the queue
  • sboinstall: Honor the blacklist when installing from templates
  • Handle circular dependency errors
  • Repo.pm: More accurate warning text in case of BADSIG

• 3.3 - 2024-12-31

  • sboconfig: Allow versions "X.Y+" and "current"; more informative error messages
    • Thanks to dchmelik for the report.
  • Exit with invalid sbotools.conf parameters
  • sbocheck: Before fetch, offer to exit if the git branch does not exist
  • Repo.pm: Check for local repo similarity to SBo rather than relying on SLACKBUILDS.TXT
  • sbosnap: Redundant; replace with a compatibility symlink
  • Wrap variable-length onscreen messaging (that can't be piped), prompts and error messages at 72 characters
  • sboconfig: Use --reset to restore all default configuration values
  • Build.pm: Remove temporary directory in case of signal
  • Bugfix: When parsing info files, fix whitespace, unwanted lines, quotation and backslashes
    • Thanks to Geremias for the original report.
  • Info.pm: Tweak build number detection for an sbocheck performance boost

• 3.2.1 - 2024-12-20

  • Bugfix: sboinstall, sboupgrade GPG check for custom repositories (removed unneeded conditional)

• 3.2 - 2024-12-19

  • sbocheck: Do not use compact format for CLASSIC mode
  • Repo.pm: Prompt for regeneration if SLACKBUILDS.TXT is missing instead of erroring out
  • Set GPG_VERIFY to TRUE to verify with gpg in case of repo fetch, sboinstall or sboupgrade
    • Thanks to Slack Coder for the idea.
  • Bugfix: do not crash if sbotools.conf provides an improper value of SLACKWARE_VERSION
    • Thanks to dchmelik for the report.
  • Repo.pm: Offer to retry failed git fetch
  • Bugfix: sbocheck reports version differences between LOCAL_OVERRIDES and the repository
  • Util.pm: Read the hints file only once; allow multiple optional dependency specs for the same script
  • Lint the value of SBO_HOME before running anything other than sboconfig
    • Thanks to dchmelik for the report.
  • Repo.pm: Remove antiquated subroutine migrate_repo()
  • Install development man pages on SBO::Lib to man 3
    • Thanks to Charadon for the request.

• 3.1 - 2024-12-05

  • sbofind: Allow multiple search terms
  • Add a summary sbotools(1) man page with executive summaries and a startup guide
  • sboinstall: Use --mass-rebuild to rebuild all non-compat32 SlackBuilds
    • Thanks to Charadon for the request.
  • sboconfig: Fix incorrect misconfiguration warnings
  • sbocheck: More compact output.
    • Thanks to dchmelik for the feedback.
  • sbotools.hints: User-specified blacklist and optional dependency requests
  • Bugfix: Prevent undefined build number checks with a local override directory
  • Bugfix: Add a missing git pull for custom git branches
  • sboinstall: Use a resume file for --mass-rebuild
  • Clarify LOCAL_OVERRIDES documentation
  • Detect and handle next version (currently 15.1) more effectively
    • Thanks to Slack Coder for the feedback.
  • Adopt MIT License
    • Thanks to Slack Coder for the suggestion.

• 3.0 - 2024-11-22

  • sbocheck: Use --nopull to check for updated SlackBuilds without updating the tree
  • sboremove: Remove undocumented and dangerous nointeractive option
  • sbofind: Use --reverse to check for installed reverse dependencies
    • This feature was originally planned by Andreas Guldstrand.
  • Add setting CLASSIC; turn on BUILD_IGNORE and RSYNC_DEFAULT, and disable output added post-sbotools
  • Fix some --help verbiage

Note

This repository was renamed from sbotools3 to sbotools prior to the release of sbotools-3.0.

• sbotools3 1.1 - 2024-11-03

  • Bugfix: incorrect variable name caused sboupgrade to rebuild when unneeded.

• sbotools3 1.0 - 2024-11-01

  • Change the git branch to match the Slackware version, or to a user-configured branch
    • The ability to specify a git branch was originally planned by Andreas Guldstrom.
  • Change the default URLs to support Slackware 15.0 and use git repositories
  • Use rsync default mirrors with RSYNC_DEFAULT (except for -current)
    • Thanks to Slack Coder for the feedback.
  • Detect build number changes and optionally upgrade
    • Thanks to qunying for the request.
  • Detect and report out-of-tree _SBo SlackBuilds with sbocheck
    • This feature was originally planned by Andreas Guldstrand.
  • Save any build options when running a SlackBuild
  • Install bash completions; zsh completions have been updated
  • Install a default configuration file; tweak sboconfig to play somewhat nicely with it
    • Thanks to dcjud for the request.
  • Fix making -compat32 packages for non-i486 SlackBuilds
  • Fix building -compat32 packages from templates

Historical Changes

Development from version 0.1 through 2.7 took place at pink-mist/sbotools. Unless indicated otherwise, the changes below are thanks to Andreas Guldstrand.

• Post-2.7 - 2019

  • Add and install zsh completions
    • Thanks to contributor drgibbon.

• 2.7 - 2019-04-28

  • Actually fix the sbofind -e bug #71

• 2.6 - 2019-04-27

  • Compatibility with new perl versions where you need to escape { in regexp #75 #77 #78
    • Thanks to contributor pedrormjunior.
  • Add a --tries 5 option when downloading from sbosrcarch, which is a saner limit than the default of 20. #79
    • Thanks to contributor 9m9.
  • Change sboclean options --clean-dist and --clean-work to shorter forms #52
  • Add limited -current support using ponce's SBo repo for -current #73
  • Fix bug with sboinstall --reinstall -r #72
  • Fix bug with sbofind -e #71

• 2.5 - 2018-02-14

  • Document download behaviour #66
  • Remake sbosnap and sboremove to have OO semantics
  • Strip -compat32 from slackbuild names when looking them up #65
  • Optimise searching in sbofind

• 2.4 - 2017-05-18

  • Rewrite sboremove from the ground up so it relies less on global state
  • Fix for parsing README with useradd/groupadd commands which span lines #57
  • Add --reinstall option to sboinstall #58
  • Exit with error when sbosnap fails to sync with a repo #61
  • Add version information to sbofind output #60

• 2.3 - 2017-01-21

  • Bugfix for parsing .info files with \ among the separators #55

• 2.2 - 2017-01-17

  • Bugfix for parsing .info files with trailing whitespace after a value #54

• 2.1 - 2017-01-14

  • Internals:
    • Adding internal documentation
    • Extract code to submodules for easier separation of concerns
  • New features:
    • Support for templates for installing things with specified options #38
    • Display other README files if the slackbuild comes with them #49
  • Bugfixes
    • sboinstall/sboremove disagreeing about a package being installed #44
    • sbocheck and sboupgrade misinterpreting version strings #45
    • parsing .info files without leading space on second line #46
    • local git repo gets partially chowned to root #47
    • stop excluding .tar.gz files when rsyncing #53

• 2.0 - 2016-07-02

  • Major new features

    • LOCAL_OVERRIDES setting

      Allows to keep a directory with local slackbuild dirs that will override whatever is found in the regular repository. #8 #13 #14 #15 #19 #20

    • SLACKWARE_VERSION setting

      Allows to specify the slackware version to sync from SBo. Previously only the version in your /etc/slackware-version was used for this, and if that had gotten updated in -current, you'd have needed to wait both for a new version of sbotools, as well as SBo to get the new repository online before sbotools would work for you again. #19

    • REPO setting

      This will override the SLACKWARE_VERSION setting. It's used to specify an absolute URL for the SBo repository you want to sync with. #6 #19 #27

    • Use sbosrcarch source archive if download fails #7 #19 #24

    • sboupgrade --all option to upgrade everything listed by sbocheck. #9 #19

    • Travis CI integration

      Every push will now cause the test-suite to be run. #18

    • Hundreds of new unit-tests. #18 #19 #23 #24 #25 #27 #28 #31 #32 #33 #35 #41 #43

    • sbofind will now also use tags if they're available #37

  • Minor/bugfixes/documentation fixes
    • Use system perl when running and installing sbotools.
    • sbocheck output changed. #10 #13 #20
    • Better debug messages on errors. #16
    • manpage fixes. #17
    • sboupgrade handles dependencies better. #12 #28
    • Update bundled Sort::Versions to 1.62.
    • sboinstall/upgrade/sbocheck: small bugfixes. #21 #35 #41 #43
    • sbosnap: display download progress, update git trees better. #26 #27

• 1.9 - 2015-11-27

  • Make it compatible with perls newer than 5.18
  • Lots of code cleanup
  • Rewrite build-queue code. #2
  • Fix issue when TMP is set. #4
  • Fix various bugs related to cleanup code
  • Change location of website
  • Fix downloading of multiple sources in newer slackbuilds. #5