Capybara is a system to help you compile and install free software, based on the epkg package manager. To compile a
capybara package, you just use one of our simple makefiles (see
example) and type make. This single command automatically downloads the source
code from the internet, compiles it, and installs the resulting files into a directory like
/opt/packagename-1.2.3. You then install the package with the command epkg
packagename. Instead of copying all of the files into your system directories,
epkg makes a bunch of symbolic links so that the files appear to be in correct
locations. With the files still confined to the package directory, you can easily uninstall them
(epkg -r packagename) or remove them completely (rm -r
/opt/packagename-1.2.3). You can even browse or use the package files without installing
the package, since they are just sitting in a directory.
You are welcome to use capybara just for installing the occasional package that you can't figure out — or you can use capybara to build a nearly complete system from scratch. Here's how you do it:
cd /usr/share/capybara/packages/xbill; make; epkg xbill.