Sun Solaris: How to Install or Remove Sparc Packages Using pkgadd and pkgrm

Question: I would like to know how to install, uninstall, verify sparc packages on Sun Solaris. Can you explain me with an example?

Answer: Use pkgadd to install a sparc package. Use pkgrm to remove a sparc package as explained below.

Packages on Solaris allow easy installation and extraction of software. All the parts of a package are maintained in a table of contents. The package tools allow you to install and remove software easily without having to worry about “ghost files” left on the system or mis-configured or partly installed software.

Installing a sparc using pkgadd

Example to install the pacakge Afio sparc package,

$ pkgadd -d  /root/afio-2.5-sol10-sparc

The following packages are available:
  1  SMCafio     afio
                 (sparc) 2.5

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

Processing package instance <SMCafio> from </root/afio-2.5-sol10-sparc-local>

afio
(sparc) 2.5
Koen Holtman
Using </usr/local> as the package base directory.
## Processing package information.
## Processing system information.
   4 package pathnames are already properly installed.
## Verifying disk space requirements.
## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.

Installing afio as <SMCafio>

Installation of <SMCafio> was successful.

You can verify your installation using pkginfo command, as shown below.

$ pkginfo SMCafio
application SMCafio                          afio

Uninstalling a sparc using pkgrm

pkgrm command removes the package completely.

$ pkgrm SMCafio

The following package is currently installed:
   SMCafio         afio
                   (sparc) 2.5

Do you want to remove this package? [y,n,?,q] y

## Removing installed package instance <SMCafio>
## Processing package information.
## Removing pathnames in class <none>
Removal of <SMCafio> was successful.