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NAME

meta package - an ALPM based package that solely defines package relations.

DESCRIPTION

Meta packages refer to ALPM based packages that do not provide files, but instead only define package relations. They are used for defining the required package relations of an abstract scenario or use-case (e.g. “packages for a minimum system installation” or “all packages needed for a special development environment”).

Meta packages are handled like any other ALPM based package by a package manager and require their various package relations upon installation. A -meta suffix may be used in the alpm-package-name to more easily distinguish meta packages from other packages.

EXAMPLES

The following PKGBUILD example defines a meta package, that upon installation pulls in the bash and gcc-libs packages:

    pkgname=example-meta
    pkgver=0.1.0
    pkgrel=1
    pkgdesc="A meta package example"
    arch=(any)
    url="https://archlinux.org"
    license=('GPL-3.0-or-later')
    depends=(
      bash
      gcc-libs
    )

SEE ALSO

PKGBUILD(5), PKGINFO(5), alpm-package-name(7), alpm-package-relation(7)