BandiPat and steevols have been bugging me for quite some time to put together a CLI version of Zendo, and the last few weeks have finally afforded me sufficient time to make one. So without further introduction, here's ZPM version 1.0:

http://zendo.naquadah.org/downloads/zpm/1.0/zpm-1.0-i486-54.1.tgz

Package Tests thread

It has quite a few features so far, although if I have my way it's not over yet. Although it lacks traditional searching capabilities, it lists the packages fast enough that grep can be used to perform searches very well in a traditional unix style. Users can also view description and other details about a package by using the -d/--details switch, so you aren't limited to just package names and versions.

It also has other helpful features like upgrade functions and a verbose option, so that you can see as much or little of what is going on behind the scenes as you would like to. Local mirrors are also supported in the same way as Zendo, and they both use the same configuration file. Dotnew files are automatically prompted for whenever you install a package, so there is no periodic maintenance to remember there.

BandiPat did a huge amount of brainstorming for this project, and also made a man page, which would be a good thing to view. It has extended information about the command-line options, and filters for the list option, which is very helpful.

Feature requests and bug reports are always welcome. Feel free to drop by the #Zendo irc channel on irc.webchat.org, or email me at sparkynigel@gmail.com

Please everyone, give it a good workout on your system. Sparky and I have tried to put it through it's paces before the release, but then everybody uses things differently, so something might have been overlooked. If something doesn't seem logical in the way it works or you continously hit a stumbling block, let Sparky know about it.

ZPM has many safety features built-in as well as reliability. Many things the user won't even notice that Sparky has done to keep you and your system safe, but there are new things!

We hope you like it enough to make it a part of your Zenwalk experience!

Regards,
BandiPat

Fantastic job!

I have now officially switched to zpm! zpm -u is so much faster than netpkg upgrade and I love the dotnew handling!!!! Thank you for your hard work!

Now some thoughts/ideas:
1. Why so few mirrors included in zendo.conf by default? I can always add more myself of course and I know you know there are more because you list them in the website, so... why?
2. Can you make the package names case insensitive? So if I do zpm fretsonfire I get the package which has been badly named by its packager with caps all over the place?
3. Can we have a search option? Something like zpm -s mail should return all packages that include "mail" in the package name or description (case insensitive again). Just package names should be enough, or maybe the 1st line of slack-desc next to the package name.
4. A --remove-with-deps option maybe? So if I remove package A which depended on package B and now B is needed by nothing else, B is prompted for removal, not auto-removed (maybe except in combination with -a?).

yes... this is a fantastic tool. i have also switched to zpm

thanks for the package

So many to choose from, I couldn't make up my mind so I just went with approximately 1 of each repository. I'll include some more in the next release though. If you have any favorites I'll be sure to include them.

Absolutely. Good point, having to figure out all the capitalization can be annoying.

Good news, this is already implemented for the next version. Using the -q/--query switch you will be able to search for package names in a non-specific way similar to zpm -l a|grep package. It's not case insensitive yet though, I will have to change that.

I'll work on that. It would definitely be a handy feature.


On a side note, I advise that everybody use the --verbose or -v option until the next release. The non-verbose download function is somewhat unreliable and has some other problems.

You can get the current list from netpkg.conf, double everything to snapshot too and you'll have everything (edit: except the enialis one is listed only in snapshot, don't know why the list in netpkg.conf is like that). And also remove the meleeweb mirror, it's hasn't been working for ages. And does zpm or zendo handle ftp? If they do you could also add this one: ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/mirrors/zenwalk/i486/current and snapshot respectively.

I added some more mirrors to Zendo 1.4.1 since it hasn't gotten through FIFO yet, hopefully that will be better. ZPM does support ftp servers, by the way.

Enilias.net is provided by me. "Current" is available and ok, I think it is just missing from netpkg.conf. It could be added to zendo.conf, no pb.

I agree with the propositions of gapan plus one :
Is it possible to use vimdiff when it is available on the system for dotnew files ? This way, it's easier to take some lines from the new config file while keeping the custom config files.

OK, I put this in, hopefully it will be to your liking when the next version comes out.

Thanks

It seems like ZPM 1.1 is ready for release! This version has a lot of changes, so don't be surprised if there are bugs, and of course please let me know.

http://zendo.naquadah.org/downloads/zpm/1.1/zpm-1.1-i486-54.1.tgz

I think I was successfully able to incorporate all of the suggestions so far, in addition to voluminous ideas and usability tweaks from BandiPat's department. Keep in mind that the -e option is very dangerous for obvious reasons. For -e to work 100% correctly it must be able to retrieve the dependencies for all installed packages from the mirror, which should be fine unless you have a habit of installing lots of software from places other than the Zenwalk repos. I put a big red warning message on it.

* Added a function to remove a package with its unneeded dependencies (--erase-with-deps/-e)
* Added a function to find which package a file comes from (--what-provides/-w)
* Made the downloader always verbose, fixes many downloading problems
* Added a (current of total) message for installation and removal procedures
* Added gzip -l to check downloaded archive integrity
* Added failure handling for package installation
* Added more mirrors to the default configuration
* Made most functions case-insensitive
* Added a function to search package names (--query/-q)
* Modified the --help screen to be more readable
* Added a vimdiff option to the dotnew file handler
* Added blacklist support to the package remover
* Made the mirror refresh automatically when running --list/-l u

Thank you!

- The -e option seems to work perfect!
- I think I found a bug! If a package is already installed, issuing zpm packagename will install it again! I think it should better state that the same package is already installed and for verification to reinstall it.

That was actually the intended behavior, but you are right, it should probably prompt the user so they don't spend time reinstalling packages on accident.

EDIT: I made a small mistake, so zpm -d package will fail if the package has upper-case letters in it. That's fixed now though, redownload if you like.

gapan,
This was done because so many times a fixed or rebuilt file is uploaded to the mirrors, but most users won't get it or it won't be "installed/upgraded" because the programs don't install/upgrade the same version number. Sparky has incorporated special switches in "zpm -i or zpm [package]" to eliminate that problem, so it now will in fact "upgrade" the package without causing 2 installs of the same package, I know we've all seen/done that before, thus keeping your system integrity.

I do agree that a warning might be helpful, but I'm not sure it's needed, since it's not really a problem/bug and not in danger of hurting your system. It just provides an extra convenience for the user as well maintaining system package integrity.

This should never happen and has never happened as long as I remember. The version number stays the same, the build number is always incremented.