Clone from github: git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:majorkingleo/xstow.git

XStow is a replacement of GNU Stow (http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/) written in C++. It supports all features of Stow with some extensions.

XStow, as GNU Stow, is a program for managing the installation of software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be installed in the same place (/usr/local).

Stow requires Perl. But what about systems where Perl isn't available, or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed.

For compiling XStow a C++ compiler and a system with a couple of POSIX functions are required. It does not depend on an interpreter. Static compilation for e.g. rescue disks are possible.

XStow installs packages in exactly the same way as Stow, so you can even start a Linux From Scratch installation with XStow and when Perl is running continue installation using GNU Stow.

Name

The X in the name has nothing to do with X11. It simply stands for Extended Stow (... I think).

Status

It works fine.

Features

XStow generates Stow compatible symlinks. You can install a package with XStow and uninstall it with Stow.

It also supports the creation of symlinks with absolute path names, but this will break compatibilty with Stow.

• automated stow directory detection
• automated traversable link detection (/usr/man is a link to /usr/share/man)

Planned Features

If you have any other ideas send a mail to kingleo@gmx.at.

Future

By default full Stow compatibilty should be obtained. But more features will be impemented.

Why

• Stow requires Perl. But what about systems where Perl isn't available, or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed. This was the initial reason.

• Stow lacks some features and I'm not very common with perl... So I implemented them in XStow.

Static versions

If you enable static compiling 2 binaries 'xstow', 'xstow-static' will be created.

The 'xstow-static' version has no ncurses support and the binary is compiled statically.

If you are using XStow heaviliy, it's recomended to compile these static versions, since you are using XStow like a base system tool. Upgrading libc with a static xstow is no problem.

Libraries

• ncurses

For better --help screen support, XStow uses the ncurses library. With the help of this library XStow uses the available width of the terminal it is running on.

If you don't compile XStow with ncurses support, the terminal width will be guessed as 80 characters wide.

So the ncurses support is absolutely not required.

git

When checking out from github you need to get all submodules by command:

git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:majorkingleo/xstow.git

Or if you already checked out:

cd xstow && git submodule update --init --recursive