CheckInstall(8)

💖 checkinstall — the girlies' guide to tracking installs 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for checkinstall, and it lives in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual. it's giving package manager whisperer, and honestly? you're gonna be obsessed.

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✨ NAME ✨

checkinstall — track the installation of local software, and produce a binary that's manageable with your package management software. no cap. 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

checkinstall [options]  [install command]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like, checkinstall is a program that monitors an installation procedure (think make install, install.sh, that whole vibe) and then creates a standard package for your distribution that you can install through your distro's own package management system. currently the supported package types are deb, rpm and tgz, and the matching managers are dpkg, rpm or installpkg. periodt. 💅

⚠️ real talk though: for most of the actually-useful actions, checkinstall must be run as root. like, root root. 👑

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🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

these programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (-). summary below, bestie 💜

here's the cute little rule that applies to all the toggle options: they default to activating the option. if you wanna force it on or off, call them with =yes or =no. example: to disable stripping you'd use --strip=no. iconic.

• -h, --help — show a summary of options. the little "what's good" button 🫶
• --version — show version information.
• --copyright — show copyright information.
• --type — choose your packaging system. can be one of 'slackware', 'debian' or 'rpm'. pick your fighter ⭐
• -D — create a Debian package.
• -R — create a RPM package.
• -S — create a Slackware Package.
• --install — toggle installation of the created package.
• --fstrans — enable/disable filesystem translation. when filesystem translation is enabled, the install proceeds inside a temporary directory instead of actually touching your system. yes bestie, it's a safe space 🧚
• -y, --default — accept the default answer to every single question. zero decisions, maximum peace 🙈
• --pkgname — set the package name.
• --pkgversion — set the package version.
• -A, --arch, --pkgarch — set the package architecture.
• --pkgrelease — set the package release.
• --pkglicense — set the package license.
• --pkggroup — set the package group.
• --pkgsource — set source location.
• --pkgaltsource — set alternate source location.
• --pakdir — where to save the new package. (yes, that's spelled --pakdir, we don't make the rules 💀)
• --maintainer — set the package maintainer, for example --maintainer="Jane Doe <jane@example.org>". the value is used as given, with no shell expansion. keep that in mind, it's important. 💅
• --provides — features provided by this package (currently only on RPM and Deb).
• --requires — dependencies required by this package.
• --prerequires — dependencies that must be installed and configured before this package.
• --rpmflags — pass these flags to the rpm installer.
• --rpmi — use the -i flag when installing a rpm.
• --rpmu — use the -U flag when installing a rpm.
• --dpkgflags — pass these flags to the dpkg installer.
• --spec — where the .spec file is located.
• --nodoc — do not include documentation files.
• -d — set debug level. must be one of 0, 1 and 2.
• -si — run an interactive install command.
• --showinstall — toggle interactive install command.
• -ss — run an interactive Slackware installation script.
• --showslack — toggle interactive Slackware installation script.
• --autodoinst — toggle creation of a doinst.sh script.
• --strip — toggle stripping any ELF binaries found inside the package.
• --stripso — toggle stripping any ELF libraries (.so) found inside the package.
• --autodeps — work out the shared library dependencies of the installed binaries with dpkg-shlibdeps and record them in the package, exactly like a normally packaged program would. Debian packages only. on by default. 🔥
• --debcompression — compression to use when building a Debian package: gzip, xz, zstd or none. leave it unset and dpkg-deb chooses for you. heads up: on a large package, gzip and zstd finish much faster than xz, and produce a bigger file. pick your tradeoff bestie ⚖️
• --addso — search for any shared libs and add them to /etc/ld.so.conf.
• --reset-uids — reset perms for all files/dirs to 755 and the owner/group for all dirs to root.root.
• --gzman — compress any man pages found inside the package.
• --docdir — where to put documentation files.
• --umask — set the umask value.
• --exclude — exclude these files/directories from the package.
• --include — force the inclusion in the package of the files/dirs listed in the argument (a file).
• --inspect — inspect the package's file list.
• --review-spec — review the spec file before creating a .rpm.
• --review-control — review the control file before creating a .deb.
• --newslack — use the new (8.1+) Slackware description format. ("--newslack" implies -S) 🎀
• --with-tar — manually set the path to the tar binary.
• --deldoc — toggle deletion of doc-pak upon termination.
• --deldesc — toggle deletion of description-pak upon termination.
• --delspec — toggle deletion of spec file upon termination.
• --bk — backup any overwritten files.
• --backup — toggle backup.

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💜 FILES 💜

this program reads its configuration from /etc/checkinstallrc, which you can use to override the defaults. and remember: command line arguments override settings in the configuration file. cli stays winning 👑

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was written by Felipe Sateler <fsateler@gmail.com> for the Debian system (but it may be used by others 🫶). permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2.

on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was CheckInstall(8) from the System Manager's Manual — go forth and package responsibly, you absolute icon 🌟🎀✨