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://r...@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: b...@softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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