Sortix volatile manual

This manual documents Sortix volatile, a development build that has not been officially released. You can instead view this document in the latest official manual.

TIX(8)

System Manager's Manual

TIX(8)

NAME

tix — package management

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

tix is a networked binary package manager, which can also build binary packages from source port(5) files.

A tix installation is called a collection. The optional first operand specifies the path to a collection to act on, as made with the create command, defaulting to the root directory. The choice is forwarded as the -C option to all programs.

A tix installation ordinarily points to a remote tix channel or release per tix-release(8), from which packages and upgrades are obtained.

tix is the top-level driver for a suite of programs, and the next operand selects which program to invoke:

clean [...]: tix-clean(8) - Delete cached and temporary files in $collection/var/cache/tix.
create [-u url] [...]: tix-create(8) - Create and modify a tix collection.
fetch file ...: tix-fetch(8) - Download files from the release repository.
install package ...: tix-install(8) - Download and install packages.
metabuild port ...: tix-metabuild(8) - Build and install multiple port(5) files.
port port ...: tix-port(8) - Build and install a single port(5) file.
uninstall package ...: tix-uninstall(8) - Uninstall packages.
upgrade [...]: tix-upgrade(8) - Upgrade to a new release by redownloading all packages and reinstalling them.

Additionally the tix suite of programs contain the following low-level programs that are meant to be invoked directly and not through this top-level driver:

tix-autoupgrade(8): daemon(7) for automatically upgrading to new releases in the background.
tix-build(8): A low-level build program invoked by tix-port(8).
tix-eradicate-libtool-la(8): A helper program that remove unnecessary libtool files from the staging directory during the port(5) build.
tix-execdiff(8): Diff the executable permission between files in two directory trees.
tix-execpatch(8): Apply the diff produced by tix-execdiff(8).
tix-iso-add(8): Add additional files to a CD-ROM image as per release-iso-modification(7).
tix-iso-bootconfig(8): Configure the bootloading of a CD-ROM release per release-iso-modification(7).
tix-iso-liveconfig(8): Configure the live environment of a CD-ROM release per release-iso-modification(7).
tix-list-packages(8): Compute the set of ports and their build order as per tix-metabuild(8).
tix-release(8): Publish tix releases and channels.
tix-repository(8): Generate metadata for a tix repository.
tix-rmdiff(8): Diff the removed files between files in two directory trees.
tix-rmpatch(8): Apply the diff produced by tix-rmdiff(8).
tix-vars(8): Evaluate variables in the port(5) format.

FILES

/tix/: The tix collection metadata directory.
/tix/collection.conf: collection.conf(5) configuration.
/tix/manifest/: Sorted file lists for every installed package.
/tix/tixinfo/: Metadata for every installed package.

EXIT STATUS

tix will execute the invoked subprogram and exit as it does.

EXAMPLES

Install a package

To install the foo package and its runtime dependencies:

tix install foo

Uninstall a package

To uninstall the foo package:

tix uninstall foo

Upgrade to a new release

To upgrade to a new release on the current channel:

tix upgrade

System installations will schedule the upgrade for the next boot, whereas non-system installations will upgrade immediately.

Download a binary package

To download a binary package or other metainformation from the repository:

tix fetch foo.tix.tar.xz

Third-party packages

Additional third party packages can be installed by creating another collection pointed to the appropriate channel and version:

tix /local create -u https://example.com/local/channel/stable/1.0
tix /local install foo

Packages may require installation in a certain directory path, unless they happen to be location-independent.

Building third-party ports

All the packages in a third-party port(5) directory can be built from source and installed into any location:

tix /opt/initech metabuild /path/to/initech/ports

Use the --packages option to build a subset of packages. This method builds location-dependent packages with the right paths for the collection.

Publishing binary package releases on a channel

A third-party port(5) directory can be built as binary packages with the tix-metabuild(8) command, published as a signed release with tix-release(8), and the release can be put on a signed channel using tix-release(8). Users can then download the packages by creating a collection using tix-create(8) pointed to the appropriate channel or release. See the documentation for detailed examples.

HISTORY

tix originally appeared in Sortix 0.8. It was expanded into a full networked package management solution in Sortix 1.1.

March 10, 2025

Sortix 1.1.0-dev