Nim has very few dependencies. It depends on no other ports on BSDs & [Gentoo](https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/dev-lang/nim/nim-0.16.0.ebuild), because the base system would always include certain minimum things. Nim's Debian port depends on "libc6(>=2.14)" and "libssl1.0.2". `rpm -qpR` on openSUSE's package [lists other things](http://pastebin.com/raw/MBZJGAxP).
It would be good to clarify exactly what Nim needs: **an official dependencies list**, including what minimum version, and what are the consequences of not having it. It would also be good to list optional things for Gentoo USE flags and make config. If dependencies aren't an issue, it would be pretty easy to install Nim binaries with one [txz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_\(computing\)#Suffixes_for_compressed_files) file per OS * CPU architecture combination. The main downside of that is the user won't be notified about updates. > Here's an aarch64 (ARM64) build of mine: It is a security risk for anyone to use binaries (or source code) that don't come from an official authority. This should either be the core Nim project team or the OS/distro package managers (which may delegate specific packages to specific volunteers, but with some degree of accountability). I think the priorities of this effort should be to: * (1) Come up with a list of existing official packages by existing OS/distro package managers. It is better to have people install that way, so they get easy automatic updates, but only if the package manager keeps the Nim version up to date. * (2) Come up with an _automatable_ way of compiling Nim (including nimble, etc) txz's for many OSes and architectures. This could involve something like qemu or a cloud service like EC2. I've been looking into this, but the official Nim project binaries builds should be overseen by the core team. * (3) Create a widget for the download page where the user selects OS, distro, and architecture, and then gets instructions for the various ways (in order of what is recommended) of installing Nim: distro package, untaring our package, or building from source. I don't see why the last option should ever be mandatory. * (4) Nag the OS package managers that fall short to update / improve their packages based on our txz example and Nim's official dependencies list. We should also ask them to include nimble, because one of the main benefits of this effort is to ease deployment of software that is written in Nim.
