Slackermedia

Using sport

Sport is extremely flexible in how it can be used. The traditional UNIX method:

1. The first step is to obtain the port tree (in other words, the current contents of the "app store").

   # sport rsync

2. You are up to date, so you can change into your sport tree:

   # cd /usr/ports

3. Search for the application that you want to install. No idea what you need to install? Read the Slackermedia manual to find out what applications are available for Linux that will meet your needs.

   For example:

   # sport search inkscape
      graphics/inkscape.tar.gz
      network/elinks.tar.gz
   

   Note that at this stage, sport is case insensitive and your search is forced to be as fuzzy as possible.

4. Assuming you were looking for the drawing application Inkscape and not the terminal-based web browser elinks, then change into the graphics directory and then into the inkscape directory.

   You might want to see some helpful information about the package you are considering installing. For this, use sport cat . (the dot means "this" or "here")

   # sport cat .
   PRGNAM="inkscape"
   VERSION="0.48"
   HOMEPAGE="http://inkscape.org/"
   DOWNLOAD="http://downloads.inkscape.org/inkscape/w3m-0.48.tar.gz#34;
   MD5SUM="1b845a983a50b8dec0169ac48479eacc"
   REQUIRES="gsl"
   Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor.
   

5. Uh oh, it looks like Inkscape depends upon gsl. So before proceeding, you must satisfy that dependency, which can be done exactly as we're doing here with Inkscape. In fact, it would be quite easy to resolve it:

   # sport install gsl
   

   But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's pretend that we already have gsl installed (if you have installed all the Slackermedia deps and libs, this would be installed already) or that we just installed it with the command above.

   (If you are not sure if something is installed or not, then you can check quite easily:)

   # sport check gsl
      /var/log/packages/gsl-1.2.3-x86_64-1_SBo
   

6. All else being satisfied, you would want to download, build, and install the application. Use the install verb:

   # sport install .
   

   If you manage multiple systems and are creating packages on one machine for a bunch of others, you might want to only download and build, leaving the package uninstalled for now. For that, add the --build-only flag.

   # sport install --build-only .
   

And that's all there is to it.

I hope sport is useful to you.

If you are an advanced Linux user, you can read more about the advanced usage of Sport.