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Project pkgs.org

lystor
lystor Posts: 6
in Getting Started with Linux

Hi

Let me introduce a project for finding, analizing and downloading Linux software and packages.

The project provides next features:

* Large, daily updated database with RPM and DEB packages for well-known repositories of the Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSuse distributions.

* Packages browser by distribution, repository, packages group with the filtering support.

* Detailed packages information (name, version, description, architecture, files, requires, etc.).

* Detailed packages statistics by project, distribution, repository and packages group.

* HTTP/FTP/RSYNC mirrors lists for the packages downloading.

* Packages search by name, summary, description, requires, provides, files and directories.

* URL shortcuts for the direct packages search.

* Effective site navigation.

* XHTML/CSS markup.

The project is still under the development.

Project site: http://pkgs.org/

Comments

  • marc
    marc Posts: 647
    What's the point of a site like that? Isn't it much easier,faster and simpler to use the distro repositories?
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    marc wrote:
    What's the point of a site like that? Isn't it much easier,faster and simpler to use the distro repositories?

    I disagree, this may be a useful method to locate packages that are not located on official repos, which would be housed by a community or individuals. Although they would not necessarily be trusted as much the option should still exist.

    Now if they can add slackware repos to the list I would like it more.
  • lystor
    lystor Posts: 6
    mfillpot wrote:
    Now if they can add slackware repos to the list I would like it more.
    I will write a parser for the Slackware repos and add them to the project but I need some time for it.
  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    I just saw this announcement on the Fedora-devel mailing list. I'm wondering what the response will be there. :)
    I think that having access to apps that aren't in each specific distro's repo's can be helpful. Although I wonder how many problems will arise when the app from one repo is used with another distro. An example might be how some Ubuntu apps would not place nice with pure Debian based distros a while back (or maybe they still don't play nice).

    I always look forward to new projects, I guess we'll see how this one goes.
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    Thank you for that inclusion, if possible a build script repo index may also be useful for users on multiple architectures.
  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    I'm still curious about the response. I was incorrect yesterday when I said I saw in on the fedora-devel mailing list, it was in the fedora forum, where at the moment it hasn't drawn much attention. I still think it's interesting.
  • marc
    marc Posts: 647
    Goineasy9 wrote:
    I'm still curious about the response. I was incorrect yesterday when I said I saw in on the fedora-devel mailing list, it was in the fedora forum, where at the moment it hasn't drawn much attention. I still think it's interesting.

    I still think it is not the way to go. The proper way of installing a thing that is not provided by your distro (and therefore you package manager) is to use statically linked programs so you don't run into the famous dependency hell(that is if you are not able to produce a proper package for your own use[offtopic:that is why I love Archlinux so much]). I still remember back in 1998 when you wanted to install something on a system without a package manager that took care of the dependencies. In fact, apt-get made so famous because of it's ability to resolve dependencies ;)
  • lystor
    lystor Posts: 6
    mfillpot wrote:Now if they can add slackware repos to the list I would like it more.[/quote]
    Slackware repositories are indexed!
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    The official repos are indexed, but I know that there are many unofficial repos that are not that easy to locate which can become more accessible after inclusion in a multi distro index.
  • lystor
    lystor Posts: 6
    mfillpot wrote:
    The official repos are indexed, but I know that there are many unofficial repos that are not that easy to locate which can become more accessible after inclusion in a multi distro index.

    Besides official Slackware repositories (Extra, Pasture, Patches, Slackware, Testing) also indexed third-party repos:
    * GSB - GNOME SlackBuild
    http://gnomeslackbuild.org/
    * Linux Packages
    http://www.linuxpackages.net/
    * Slacky - The Italian Slackware Community
    http://slacky.eu/
    * rworkman's Slackware Packages
    http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/

    Do you know other famous third-party repositories with pre-builded packages?
  • mfillpot
    mfillpot Posts: 2,177
    I know that most of the slackbuild.org team keeps their own repos for their own scripts, you already have Robbie Workman, but I know for a fact that vbatts, alienbob and others have repos available.

    With the new addition of a git retrieval method on slackbuilds, many other maintainers are setting up repos for their own build scripts and packages, so the list will definitely grow.
  • lystor
    lystor Posts: 6
    mfillpot wrote:
    I know that most of the slackbuild.org team keeps their own repos for their own scripts, you already have Robbie Workman, but I know for a fact that vbatts, alienbob and others have repos available.
    I will index the alienbob repository but I don't like it because there is only one metadata for all packages from different distributions.
  • jabirali
    jabirali Posts: 157
    Goineasy9 wrote:
    Although I wonder how many problems will arise when the app from one repo is used with another distro. An example might be how some Ubuntu apps would not place nice with pure Debian based distros a while back (or maybe they still don't play nice).
    A bit of a digression, but in my early days as a Linux user (before I learned of yum/apt), I remember installing quite a few RPMs from RedHat or SuSE on my Mandrake system (downloaded from rpm.pbone.net and installed with dependency-checking disabled). Many apps would complain about not finding the right dynamic libraries on my system, but most of them worked just fine after symlinking /usr/lib/*.so files to the filenames expected by these applications :P.
  • marc
    marc Posts: 647
    jabirali wrote:
    Goineasy9 wrote:
    Although I wonder how many problems will arise when the app from one repo is used with another distro. An example might be how some Ubuntu apps would not place nice with pure Debian based distros a while back (or maybe they still don't play nice).
    A bit of a digression, but in my early days as a Linux user (before I learned of yum/apt), I remember installing quite a few RPMs from RedHat or SuSE on my Mandrake system (downloaded from rpm.pbone.net and installed with dependency-checking disabled). Many apps would complain about not finding the right dynamic libraries on my system, but most of them worked just fine after symlinking /usr/lib/*.so files to the filenames expected by these applications :P.

    In my humble opinion that is exactly what you should *not* do on your system. That is like hoping to get problems on your system
  • Goineasy9
    Goineasy9 Posts: 1,114
    Well, I basically agree with Marc, but an app database across distro's still is interesting to me. I wouldn't suggest it's use for installing apps by newcomers, but it could still have it's uses. Just like Whohas (I think that's the command) in Debian that allows you to see what distro contains a certain app, has been useful to me in the past. And come to think of it, I've visited rpmfind a couple of times, it's been useful also.
  • jabirali
    jabirali Posts: 157
    marc wrote:
    In my humble opinion that is exactly what you should *not* do on your system.
    Goineasy9 was wondering what sorts of problems occur when you install packages on the wrong distribution. The point of my post was to point out that you can often get it to work fine - but it may require both going around the dependency checking, and then manually symlinking in place the dynamic libraries expected by the application.

    But I fully agree that it's an ugly hack, and should be avoided if possible. I think it's been 6-7 years since last time I tried it ;)
  • lystor
    lystor Posts: 6
    The project website was changed to http://pkgs.org/

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