Prerequisites

To set up a Serpent OS system to be able to build package recipes, a few prerequisites need to be installed, and a new directory for storing local build artifacts needs to be set up.

Installing the build-essential package

We maintain a build-essential metapackage that should contain the basics for getting started with packaging on Serpent OS.

sudo moss sync -u
sudo moss it build-essential

Activating the Serpent OS helper scripts

The easiest way to create a local repository is to use the helper script distributed with the Serpent OS recipe repository in the tools/ directory.

Start by cloning the recipes/ git repository:

mkdir -pv repos/serpent-os/
pushd repos/serpent-os
git clone https://github.com/serpent-os/recipes

After the recipes/ git repository has been cloned, symlink helpers.bash into ~/.bashrcd.d/:

popd
mkdir -pv ~/.bashrc.d/
ln -sv ~/repos/serpent-os/recipes/tools/helpers.bash ~/.bashrc.d/90-serpent-helpers.bash

Finally, execute the following in a new terminal tab:

cd ~
gotoserpentrepo

If the helpers script has been correctly loaded, the gotoserpentrepo command should switch to the directory containing the recipes/ git repository clone.

Setting up git hooks and linters

The just command runner should have been installed as part of build-essential.

Run the following:

gotoserpentrepo
just init

This will setup git hooks that will lint for the most common packaging errors upon git commit, as well as fill out commit message templates for you to edit as appropriate.

Adding /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid entries

Since boulder uses user-namespaces to set up isolated build roots, it is necessary to set up a subuid and a subgid file for the relevant users first:

sudo touch /etc/sub{uid,gid}
sudo usermod --add-subuids 1000000-1065535 --add-subgids 1000000-1065535 root
sudo usermod --add-subuids 1065536-1131071 --add-subgids 1065536-1131071 "$USER"

If /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid already exist, adapt the above as appropriate.