How do I manage 3rd-party dependencies in ebuilds?

Message

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 6:38 am

When writing ebuilds, how do I manage 3rd-party dependencies from other package managers, like npm, pip, etc?

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 7:00 am

Write ebuilds for them.

Best Regards,
Georgi

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 7:33 am

logrusx wrote:Write ebuilds for them.

Best Regards,
Georgi

That's easy enough for Python packages, now I see there's an eclass for that.

But what about npm packages? I can't find any ebuilds for npm packages in the Gentoo repository…

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 7:56 am

Go ask in #gentoo-dev-help. If they can't give you a direction, you're on your own.

Best Regards,
Georgi

Website · Post by **Zucca** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:49 am

Seems like we miss npm.eclass.
I only checked ::gentoo and ::guru.

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:54 am

Npm is very messy and I guess that's why there isn't an eleclass for it. I'm not an expert and JS and node.js are far away from me but I think we're not likely to see an eclass for that. Moreover I think if something needs npm package it must be npm itself and can be managed on a per-user basis.

In fact, Leyvi, are you sure you need that thing avaliable system-wide or you need it only for your regular user? I mean writing ebuilds is a good thing but not all things need ebuilds.

Best Regards,
Georgi

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:15 am

logrusx wrote:Npm is very messy and I guess that's why there isn't an eleclass for it. I'm not an expert and JS and node.js are far away from me but I think we're not likely to see an eclass for that. Moreover I think if something needs npm package it must be npm itself and can be managed on a per-user basis.

In fact, Leyvi, are you sure you need that thing avaliable system-wide or you need it only for your regular user? I mean writing ebuilds is a good thing but not all things need ebuilds.

Best Regards,
Georgi

It's a web server (not a framework, it serves a web application) and I'd like to make it less annoying to install from GitHub.

On a side note: is there a way to have an ebuild create other package formats? That is, could I make it so that once done, a .rpm or .deb package is created?

This thing I'm making an ebuild for is GPL-3, but isn't distributed anywhere. FOSS is always better when it's accessible.

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:22 am

Zucca wrote:Seems like we miss npm.eclass.
I only checked ::gentoo and ::guru.

Adding to what logrusx said: npm feels very un-gentoo to me. Everyone here likes sh, perl, lisp, or python. JavaScript fits in with those languages about as well as AmongOS fits in with RHEL and Amazon Linux.

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:25 am

If there are Deb or rpm packages already, you can write an ebuild that merges them. It would be very similar to what -bin ebuilds do. There are eclassrs for that as well (I think...)

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:29 am

logrusx wrote:If there are Deb or rpm packages already, you can write an ebuild that merges them. It would be very similar to what -bin ebuilds do. There are eclassrs for that as well (I think...)

leyvi wrote:This thing I'm making an ebuild for is GPL-3, but isn't distributed anywhere.

I'd like to make an ebuild for it, then maybe also package it for other package managers, if possible. I don't want to have to learn about other package managers though, I'd like it to be automatic.

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:31 am

I guess I experienced a stack overflow and that part fell off of the stack :D

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:34 am

Unfortunately I can only run circles around the issue, but you could still automate the prices of installing it from github the way you do it now with scripts?

Best Regards,
Georgi

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:55 am

logrusx wrote:I guess I experienced a stack overflow and that part fell off of the stack

Website · Post by **Zucca** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:02 am

It seems like every language which provides its own package manager and repository is a problem that needs to be circumvented.
The first problem is that the package configuring, compilation and installation (among other phases) happens in sandboxed networkless environment.
Then there are several other problems, to which I won't go into here.

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:04 am

logrusx wrote:Unfortunately I can only run circles around the issue, but you could still automate the prices of installing it from github the way you do it now with scripts?

Best Regards,
Georgi

Sure, but that's harder to distribute than a package or something like an ebuild.

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:06 am

Zucca wrote:It seems like every language which provides its own package manager and repository is a problem that needs to be circumvented.
The first problem is that the package configuring, compilation and installation (among other phases) happens in sandboxed networkless environment.
Then there are several other problems, to which I won't go into here.

Should I write a bug report? (No eclass for building npm packages.)

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:12 am

You can. Whether you should is up to you. Either way search the tracker.

Best Regards,
Georgi

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 10:40 am

logrusx wrote:You can. Whether you should is up to you. Either way search the tracker.

Best Regards,
Georgi

There were no existing bugs, so I made a feature request.

logrusx · Post by **logrusx** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:00 am

So you've got a suggestion in the bug. I knew there must be something in portage that deals with this matter already.

Best Regards,
Georgi

leyvi · Post by **leyvi** » Mon Dec 08, 2025 11:14 am

Thanks everyone!

Genone · Post by **Genone** » Fri Dec 12, 2025 1:44 pm

leyvi wrote:I'd like to make an ebuild for it, then maybe also package it for other package managers, if possible. I don't want to have to learn about other package managers though, I'd like it to be automatic.

That is a pipe dream unfortunately. While you could convert a binary Gentoo package into an rpm or deb package technically, the result wouldn't be very useful, due to significant differences in the underlying systems.
If you want a universal distribution platform best to look into Docker.

How do I manage 3rd-party dependencies in ebuilds?

How do I manage 3rd-party dependencies in ebuilds?

We need npm.eclass?

Re: We need npm.eclass?