Chimera uses apk-tools (Alpine Package Keeper) as its system package
manager. Since Chimera uses the next-generation version 3 of the package
manager which Alpine is not yet using, there are some differences.
Additionally, there are some things to currently keep in mind because of Chimera being in an early state.
Basic usage
There is only one command, apk. Everything you might want to do is
a subcommand of it. There is in general a --help for every command.
To cover the basics, this is how you refresh the index:
# apk update
This is how you install something:
# apk add linux
This is how you remove something:
# apk del bash
This is how you upgrade your system:
# apk upgrade --available
This is currently very important. The upgrade sub-command has
the flags --latest (default) and --available. The --latest
flag will prefer packages by latest version, which is what you’d
usually want.
However, since Chimera is in development, it does not yet increment revision numbers when doing package updates. That means packages may get silently rebuilt without bumping the version. That is why you should currently always use the –available flag when updating.
If updates introduce some file conflicts, which may happen this early in the development cycle (but will not happen once more stable, at least not intentionally), this will usually solve it:
# apk fix
You can also use apk fix to reinstall packages.
To search for a package in the repositories:
# apk search firefox
Virtual packages
You can also install packages by virtual names instead of by their real
names. Several things follow a standard convention for virtual provider
names: commands, shared libraries and pkg-config files. This convention
consists of a prefix (cmd:, so:, pc:) plus the name.
That means if you want to add the package that provides a command foo,
you can simply add it as it is:
# apk add cmd:foo
Repositories
By default, you will get packages from the main repository. However,
Chimera also has packages in the contrib repository, which contains
extra software unsuitable for main. This includes a large amount of
non-default GUI software, for instance (e.g. additional web browsers).
You do not need to manually change any config files to enable it. The simplest way to get it is the following:
# apk add chimera-repo-contrib
Afterwards simply refresh your indexes.
Debug packages
For most packages, there are debug symbols in a separate repository. When debugging something packaged by Chimera, installing debug symbols may help get better information.
You can enable them as follows:
# apk add chimera-repo-main-debug
# apk add chimera-repo-contrib-debug
After that, refresh your indexes. The debug packages are suffixed with -dbg.