[HECnet] Announcing RPM, a software packet manager for RSX-11M-PLUS

[Johnny Billquist]

And I need to make a quick correction to the instructions:

When the RPM.PKG file have been downloaded, you need to do the following 
three lines:

LBR RPM=RPM.PKG/EX:LIB
LBR RPM=RPM.PKG/EX:RPM
LBR CONFIG=RPM.PKG/EX:CONFIG

   Johnny

On 2020-05-30 17:38, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Since I'm on a roll today, I figure I should announce the availability 
> of a new tool for RSX, which I think most hobbyists will find rather 
> useful.
> 
> RPM is a packet manager for RSX (it has nothing to do with the Red Hat 
> Packet Manager, except the name).
> 
> Over the years, I have found it becoming an ever growing hassle to 
> manually download, build and install all the different tools that I am 
> used to have on different systems. Not to mention the headaches when 
> trying to help others and providing software for them as well.
> 
> RPM is an attempt at automating this, and making more software available 
> for all people with a small effort. I hope it will also help in getting 
> more people on to the actual latest version of various tools. 
> Historically, much software like this was distributed through DECUS, and 
> the various symposium tapes tried to distribute updates, but it was a 
> very fragmented world, where parallel development often happened, based 
> on different versions. RPM will now allow people to see what is the 
> actual latest version around, and if they want to work on something, 
> they can do that based on this.
> 
> RPM is by no means perfect, and in fact are missing a whole bunch of 
> things, but it is now at a stage where it is actually usable and useful, 
> so therefore I'm doing this announcement now.
> 
> RPM is essentially a tool to track what software is available and what 
> software is installed. It can install and remove software, and it can 
> update it to new versions when new versions become available.
> It can also be involved as a part of the boot process to automatically 
> install any tasks that are part of installed packages.
> It can fetch information both over DECnet and TCP/IP, and is written in 
> IND, and uses cleartext configuration and status files, and packages are 
> universal libraries.
> 
> Feel free to contact me about any issues, problems, wishes, or whatever. 
> I can't guarantee that anything gets down, but there is always a bigger 
> chance if I know about it. The software is also freely available, and 
> contributions from others are also very welcome.
> 
> So, with that presentation done, here are the practical details:
> 
> To use RPM, you need to fetch one file to your machine:
> RPM.PKG.
> 
> It can be found at:
> HECnet:  MIM::LB:[RPM]RPM.PKG
> Inetnet: ftp://rpm@mim.update.uu.se/rpm.pkg
> 
> Once you have downloaded that file, you need to extract two files, using 
> the following commands:
> LBR RPM=RPM.PKG/EX:RPM
> LBR CONFIG=RPM.PKG/EX:CONFIG
> 
> After that, edit CONFIG.CMD using your favorite editor. The file should 
> contain enough explanation and examples for what you need to setup.
> 
> After you've done that editing, give the command:
> 
> @RPM FETCH
> 
> this will setup the list of what packages are available.
> After that, you can do
> 
> @RPM LIST
> 
> to show what packages there are.
> It's not necessary, but I would recommend the next thing is:
> 
> @RPM INSTALL RPM
> 
> this moves the RPM package manager itself under control of RPM, so that 
> you automatically get new improvements installed when they are available.
> 
> Of course, you can then download packages (@RPM FETCH pkg), get 
> information about packages (@RPM INFO pkg), install packages (@RPM 
> INSTALL pkg), or just update them (@RPM UPDATE pkg).
> 
> However, apart from the INSTALL option, to just install those packages 
> you really would like to have, the most used option will probably be 
> "ALL", which does a fetch of the latest package list, and then updates 
> any packages that should be updated. You could in fact just place that 
> in a batch file to be run once in a while, and have your software 
> updated all the time without having to think about it.
> 
> Or else, just once in a while do a
> 
> @RPM FETCH
> @RPM LIST
> 
> to see which packages have new updates available, and then you can just 
> update the ones you want to.
> 
> Finally, it is possible to run without giving any option/command at all, 
> in which case RPM goes into interactive mode, with a menu showing what 
> you can do.
> It is also possible to run from the command line with multiple commands. 
> Each command should be separated from the others using "+" in that case.
> 
> For example:
> 
> @RPM FETCH+LIST
> 
> 
> As for what packages are available - I have started making some 
> available that I have been using and working on for many years. I have 
> plenty more software that I will make available. If anyone else have 
> software they would like to make available, I can provide some quick 
> information on how you create your own packages as well, and I can also 
> host packages from other people at Mim.
> Also, for the time being, I have mostly focused on binary packages with 
> executables. I can certainly see that eventually I would also do 
> packages for the sources of things. It's mostly a case of priorities. 
> Even though creating a package is now a fairly easy task, it do grow 
> with the number of files and stuff you want to put in there. If anyone 
> wants sources for some specific software for which I have made a 
> package, the sources are also on Mim, and are usually readable by 
> anyone. Ask me if you have any questions, and for the most part, all of 
> the software is freely available in sources as well.
> 
> Also, the binaries are built for RSX-11M-PLUS. While some might work on 
> 11M as well, I have not tried this, nor am I going to try and handle it. 
> There could also be an issue with some software if installed on older 
> versions of RSX-11M-PLUS (before V4.0). I would think it should mostly 
> work, but will not make any guarantees about that either. (If anyone 
> really is running such old versions, they should update to a newer 
> version of RSX instead).
> 
>      Johnny
> 

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol