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Slackware-SBoKeeper-2.04
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/ sbokeeper

NAME

sbokeeper - SlackBuild package manager helper

SYNOPSIS

sbokeeper [options] command [args]

DESCRIPTION

sbokeeper is a tool that can help a Slackware system administrator keep track of their installed SlackBuilds by maintaining a database of added packages and their dependencies. It is not a package manager itself, it simply helps in the task of managing SlackBuilds.

The package database is a text file that stores all of sbokeeper's package data. By default, it is stored in ~/.local/share/sbokeeper/data.sbokeeper, but it can be configured to be stored in another location.

CONFIGURATION

sbokeeper reads it's configuration from a configuration file. A sbokeeper configuration file consists of lines of key-value pairs. A key-value pair follows this format:

Key = Value

Blank lines and lines starting with a hash (#) are ignored.

Unless the -c option is used, sbokeeper will search for a configuration file in the following paths in descending order:

~/.config/sbokeeper.conf
~/.sbokeeper.conf
/etc/sbokeeper.conf

If no configuration file is found, sbokeeper will use default values for everything.

The following are valid configuration entries:

DataFile

Absolute path to file where package database will be stored. A '~' can be expanded into the running user's home directory, but other kinds of shell expansion are not performed.

Can be overridden by the -d option.

Default value is ~/.local/share/sbokeeper/data.sbokeeper.

SBoPath

Absolute to path to directory where local SlackBuild repository is kept. The directory should look something like this:

SBoPath
  academic
    pkg1
    pkg2
    ...
  business
    pkg3
    pkg4
  ...

The package categories themselves do not actually matter, all that matters is that each SlackBuild is inside a directory that is inside SBoPath.

If your SlackBuild repository directory follows the same format as the official git repository then you should be good.

A '~' can be expanded into the running user's home directory, but other kinds of shell expansion are not performed.

Can be overridden with the -s option.

The default value depends on what SlackBuild package management tools are installed on your system. If you are using one the following:

sbopkg
sbotools/sbotools2
sbpkg
slpkg
slackrepo
sboui

then sbokeeper will use the default repo location of the first package manager it finds installed on your system. If none can be found, sbokeeper will croak and just tell you to set it manually.

Tag

Packge tag used by your SlackBuild repo. The package tag is the string at the end of a package name, usually beginning with an underscore.

Can be overridden with the -t option.

The default value is '_SBo'.

Blacklist

List of packages or path to blacklist file that tells what packages to ignore.

If Blacklist starts with a slash or tilde ('/' or '~'), sbokeeper will interpret the option as a path to a blacklist file and read the blacklist from that. Otherwise, sbokeeper will treat Blacklist as a white-space seperated list of packages to blacklist.

A blacklist file is a text file that contains a list of packages to blacklist, with each package having its own line. Blank lines and lines starting with hashes ('#') are ignored.

# This will blacklist mpv, lua, and avahi
mpv
lua
avahi

Can be overridden with the -b option.

sbokeeper does not use a blacklist by default.

The /CAVEATS section of this manpage details some warnings when using blacklists.

COMMANDS

add pkg ...

Adds packages to package database, along with any of their dependencies. Added packages are marked as manually added, dependencies are not. If a package that is specified is already present in the database but not marked as manually added, it will be marked as manually added.

If add encounters a package that is already present in the package database, it will skip adding it. This means that if the package is missing dependencies, it will not try to re-add those dependencies. If this poses a problem, the depwant command can help users track down missing dependencies.

This command supports aliases.

tack pkg ...

Adds package to package database. Does not add any of their dependencies. Added packages are marked as manually added. If a package that is specified is already present in the database but not marked as manually added, it will be marked as manually added.

This command supports aliases.

addish pkg ...

Same thing as add, but added packages are not marked as manually added.

This command supports aliases.

tackish pkg ...

Same thing as tack, but added packages are not marked as manually added.

This command supports aliases.

rm pkg ...

Remove packages from package database. Does not remove dependencies.

This command supports aliases.

clean

Remove unnecessary packages from package database. This command is the same as running sbokeeper rm @unnecessary.

deps pkg

Prints list of dependencies for pkg. Does not print dependencies of those dependencies, for that I'd recommend the tree command. The dependency list is according to the dependencies found in the database, not the dependencies listed in the SlackBuild repo.

rdeps pkg

Prints a list of reverse dependencies for pkg (packages that depend on pkg). Does not print reverse dependencies of those dependencies, for that I'd recommend the rtree command. The dependency list is according to the dependencies found in the database, not those listed in the SlackBuild repo.

depadd pkg deps ...

Add deps to pkg's dependency list. Dependencies that are not present in the database will automatically be added.

** IMPORTANT **

This command provides an easy way for you to introduce circular dependencies into your package database, which sbokeeper cannot handle and can leave your database unable to be read. Refrain from carelessly using this command!

This command supports aliases for deps, they do not work for pkg.

deprm pkg deps ...

Remove deps from pkg's dependency list.

This command supports aliases for deps, they do not work for pkg.

pull

Finds any SlackBuilds.org package installed on your system that is not present in your package database and tries to add it to your database. All packages that are added are marked as manually added. Packages that are already present in your database are skipped.

diff

Prints a list of SlackBuild packages that are present on your system but not in your database and vice versa.

depwant

Prints a list of packages that are, according to the SlackBuild repo, missing dependencies in your database.

depextra

Prints a list of packages with extra dependencies and said extra dependencies. Extra dependencies are dependencies listed in the package database that are not present in the SlackBuild repo.

unmanual pkg ...

Unset packages as being manually installed, but do not remove them from the database.

This command supports aliases.

Print unique list of packages that are a part of the specified categories. The following are valid categories:

all

All packages present in the database.

manual

Packages that were manually added.

nonmanual

Packages that were not manually added.

necessary

Packages that were added manually or are a dependency of a manually added package.

unnecessary

Packages that were not manually added or a dependency of a manually added package.

missing

Packages that are not present in the database but are needed by packages in the database.

untracked

SlackBuild packages that are installed on your system but not present in your database.

phony

Packages that are present in your database that are not actually installed on your system.

If no cat is specified, defaults to 'all'.

This command supports aliases.

tree pkgs ...

Prints a dependency tree. If pkgs are not specified, prints a dependency tree for each manually added package in the database. If pkgs are specified, prints a dependency tree for each package given.

A dependency tree will look something like this:

libplacebo
  python3-meson-opt
    python3-build
      python3-pyproject-hooks
        python3-installer
          python3-flit_core
    python3-wheel
      python3-installer
        python3-flit_core
  python3-glad

This command supports aliases.

rtree pkgs ...

Same thing as tree, but for reverse dependencies instead.

This command supports aliases.

dump

Dumps contents of data file to stdout.

help cmd

Print help message for specified command.

Aliases

Some commands can accept aliases as arguments. An alias is an 'at' symbol (@) followed by the package category it is aliasing. sbokeeper will convert the alias to the list of packages it is meant to represent. For example, if you wanted to remove all packages from a package database, you could do:

sbokeeper rm @all

and @all would be substituted for a list of every package present in the database.

The following are valid aliases:

@all
@manual
@nonmanual
@necessary
@unnecessary
@missing
@untracked
@phony

Please refer to the documentation for the print command for what each of these categories mean.

OPTIONS

-B list, --blacklist=list

Specify what packages to blacklist. If list is a file, sbokeeper tries to read the blacklist from that. Otherwise, sbokeeper treats list as a whitespace-seperated list of packages to blacklist.

See the documentation for the Blacklist config file option for more information on the format of a blacklist file.

The /CAVEATS section of this manpage details some warnings when using blacklists.

-c path, --config=path

Specify the path to the configuration file.

-d path, --datafile=path

Specify the path to the data file.

-s path, --sbodir=path

Specify the path to the local SlackBuild repository.

-t tag, --tag=tag

Specify the tag used by your SlackBuild repo's packages.

-y, --yes

Automatically agree to any prompts.

-h, --help

Print help message and exit.

-v, --version

Print version and copyright information, then exit.

CAVEATS

Whenever sbokeeper encounters a blacklisted package while reading a pre-existing database, sbokeeper will skip over reading that entry. That means that when sbokeeper rewrites the database, any blacklisted package entry will be lost. This behavior may change in the future, if there is demand for it to be changed.

RESTRICTIONS

sbokeeper does not currently support tracking packages from multiple seperate repos. A possible workaround would be to maintain seperate configurations for each repo.

BUGS

sbokeeper is (as of right now) incapable of handling circular dependencies. If you stick with the official SlackBuild.org repos, this should not happen in the wild. Circular dependencies can easily be introduced if one does not use depadd carefully. So beware.

Report bugs on my Codeberg, https://codeberg.org/1-1sam.

AUTHOR

Written by Samuel Young <samyoung12788@gmail.com>.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2024-2025 Samuel Young

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See https://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.

SEE ALSO

sbopkg(1), sboui(1), slackpkg(1), pkgtool(1)