Up to this point, we have compiled and installed (example) software packages "from sources" – this meant fetching the project via Git, and executing the configure, build, test, and install steps manually. However, in practice, software packages are often rather installed using package managers, such as Apt, DNF, Pacman, pip, and Conda. We need to be able to distribute our code projects in various formats: as source archives or as binary installer.
This is what we refer to as packaging time in the now familiar scheme showing the various phases of a project using CMake:
In this chapter, we will explore different packaging strategies. ...
