pkgsrc is a package management system

Package management system

In software, a package management system, also called package manager, is a collection of software tools to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner...

 for Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports

FreeBSD Ports

The FreeBSD Ports collection is a package management system for the FreeBSD operating system, providing an easy and consistent way of installing software packages. As of October 2011, there are over 22,700 ports available in the collection...

 collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD

NetBSD

NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...

. Since then it has evolved independently: in 1999, support for Solaris was added, later followed by support for other operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s. From release 1.4 onwards, DragonFly BSD uses pkgsrc as its official packaging system. Several Linux distribution

Linux distribution

A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...

s also incorporate pkgsrc.

pkgsrc can be used either with command-line tools to install, remove and otherwise manipulate prebuilt binary packages, or to build packages from source where additional build options may be provided or features enabled or disabled.

pkgsrc currently contains over 10000 packages (over 11000 including work-in-progress packages maintained outside the official tree) and includes most popular open source software. It now supports around 14 operating systems, including AIX

AIX operating system

AIX AIX AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced "a i ex" is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms...

, various BSD derivatives, HP-UX

HP-UX

HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...

, IRIX

IRIX

IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...

, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, Solaris, and QNX

QNX

QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...

. Work is in progress to port it to A/UX

A/UX

A/UX was Apple Computer’s implementation of the Unix operating system for some of their Macintosh computers. The later versions of A/UX ran on the Macintosh II, Quadra and Centris series of machines as well as the SE/30. A/UX was first released in 1988, with the final version released in 1995...

, UWIN

UWIN

UWIN is a computer software package created by David Korn which allows programs written for the operating system Unix be built and run on Microsoft Windows with few, if any, changes...

/MinGW

MinGW

MinGW , formerly mingw32, is a native software port of the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler targeting Windows or as a native toolchain run on Windows itself...

 as well as Minix

Minix

MINIX is a Unix-like computer operating system based on a microkernel architecture created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum for educational purposes; MINIX also inspired the creation of the Linux kernel....

 (as part of a Google Summer of Code

Google Summer of Code

The Google Summer of Code is an annual program, first held from May to August 2005, in which Google awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free or open-source software coding project during the summer...

 project).

Platforms supported by pkgsrc

Platform	Date Support Added
NetBSD NetBSD NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...	August 1997
Solaris	March 1999
Linux Linux Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...	June 1999
Darwin Darwin (operating system) Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....  and Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...	October 2001
FreeBSD FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...	November 2002
OpenBSD OpenBSD OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...	November 2002
IRIX IRIX IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...	December 2002
BSD/OS BSD/OS BSD/OS was a proprietary version of the BSD operating system developed by Berkeley Software Design, Inc. ....	December 2003
AIX	December 2003
Interix Interix Interix is the name of an optional, full-featured POSIX and Unix environment subsystem for Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems.Interix is a component of the Services for Unix release 3.0 and 3.5...  (Microsoft Windows Services for Unix)	March 2004
DragonFlyBSD	October 2004
OSF/1	November 2004
HP-UX HP-UX HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...	April 2007
QNX QNX QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...	October 2007
Haiku Haiku (operating system) Haiku is a free and open source operating system compatible with BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system became self-hosting in 2008, with the first alpha release in September 2009, the second in May 2010 and the third in June 2011....	January 2010
MINIX 3 MINIX 3 MINIX 3 is a project to create a small, highly reliable and functional Unix-like operating system. It is published under the BSD license.The main goal of the project is for the system to be fault-tolerant by detecting and repairing its own faults on the fly, without user intervention...	August 2010
Illumos Illumos Illumos is a derivative of OS/Net , which basically is a Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel with the bulk of the drivers, core libraries, and basic utilities. It is dependent on OS/Net, which Illumos will follow very closely while allowing to retain changes to code which might be unacceptable to upstream...	February 2011

External links

• Official website
• A web interface for pkgsrc
• pkgsrc-wip – a project to get more people actively involved with pkgsrc
• pkgsrcCon: An annual conference focusing on pkgsrc