Skip to Content
Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks, Second Edition
book

Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks, Second Edition

by Brian Jepson, Ernest E. Rothman
February 2004
Intermediate to advanced
383 pages
11h 49m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks, Second Edition

Chapter 12. Creating and Installing Packages

In Chapter 11 we discussed installing packages with Fink; this chapter shows you how to create packages using tools provided with Mac OS X Panther, as well as with Fink.

The following packaging options are supported on Mac OS X by default:

PackageMaker

Found in /Developer/Applications/Utilities, PackageMaker can be used to create packages (.pkg), which are bundles consisting of all the items that the Mac OS X Installer (/Applications/Utilities) needs to perform an installation. PackageMaker can also create metapackages (.mpkg), which can be used to install multiple packages at the same time.

When a package is installed, a “receipt” is placed in the /Library/Receipts folder. These receipts are named with a .pkg extension and appear in the Finder as packages, even though they are not. You cannot use these files to install or update software. Instead, they are used to maintain a record of which packages have been installed on your system. This is how, for example, System Update knows not to install a package (or to update a package) that you’ve already installed. Disk Utility’s Repair Permissions feature also uses the receipt to restore the permissions on installed files to their original state.

gnutar and gzip

The Unix tape archive tool gnutar is used to bundle the directories and resources for distribution. (The tar command is provided as a hard link to gnutar.) GNU Zip (gzip) is used to compress the tar archives to make file sizes as ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Mac OS X for Unix Geeks

Mac OS X for Unix Geeks

Ernest E. Rothman, Brian Jepson
Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks, 3rd Edition

Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks, 3rd Edition

Ernest E. Rothman, Brian Jepson
Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Andy Lester, Chris Stone, Chuck Toporek, Jason McIntosh
Mac OS X For Unix Geeks, 4th Edition

Mac OS X For Unix Geeks, 4th Edition

Ernest E. Rothman, Rich Rosen, Brian Jepson

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596006071Catalog PageErrata