Installing optional packages

System: Haiku



If you want to install third party software for Haiku, you can search the web or visit one of the popular download sites like Haikuware and bebits.

You also can use a script, that was included into Haiku for the lack of a proper package manager. The name of this script is installoptionpackage. This little tutorial will show you how to use it.

Get list of available packages

To get a list of all available packages using installoptionapackage, be sure that you are connected to the internet. Then open a Terminal and enter following commands:

installoptionalpackage -l


Past some seconds you will get a list of all available packages:

Installable Optional Packages:
abi-compliance-checker armyknife bazaar beae beam behappy beoscompatibility bezillabrowser burnitnow ccache clockwerk clucene cmake developmentjava doxygen fastdep friss gettext gperf groff keymapswitcher libevent liblayout libxslt links lua man netsurf ocaml opensound paladin rsync ruby taglib transmission vim allegrolibs box2d fribidi lcms libart_lgpl libpaper


Install optional package

To install a optional package you only need to open a Terminal and execute:

installoptionalpackage -a Name of Package


The script download and install the package with all dependencies to you system.

Options of installoptionalpackage

  • -a Install package with all dependencies
  • -f Delete cache file and list available packages
  • -h Display this help
  • -l List all available and installed optional packages
  • -s Display a list of all packages and dependencies of the selected package


    • Tutorial by Christian Albrecht (Lelldorin) October 2011
    Made available by BeSly, the BeOS, Haiku and Zeta knowledge base.