fpm greatly simplifies distribution package generation.
xpm is a feature-oriented branch of fpm.

It creates or converts between

• Debian deb
• RedHat rpm
• Node npm
• OSX pkg
• Ruby gem
• Solaris packages, plain zip or tar archives, and a few more..

See the → Howto on common fpm usage examples.

xpm target/source plugins

This variant (precautiosly renamed for parallel installation) adds a few more source/target modules:

• -t exe assembles Windows SFX "installers"

• -s src consumes per-file relative pack: specifiers from meta comment fields for source-based apps

• -t phar bundles PHP scripts into .phar/zip/tars with meta fields

• -t ipk creates a static Listaller (.IPK) or Limba archive (which is a cross-distro packaging format)

• -s composer fetches PHP bundles per composer, allows to pack them as phars or system packages (or matroska phar in deb/rpm)

• -t arch builds a binary Arch Linux package.

A few more are currently pondered..

new features

This fpm branch already provides a few extensions:

• Multi-target creation in one swoop.

  xpm -t deb,rpm,exe
  

  Avoids having to call fpm multiple times for creating distinct system packages. Usually package-specific flags --deb-… and --rpm-… can be mixed in one invocation - when they're non-overlapping.

• Simple post-processing with update filters:

  xpm -u man,appdata
  

  Update filters are run between input file collection and target package building. They're intended for quick tasks or semi-build functionality. Existing filters:

  • man - compresses man pages
  • appdata - creates pkg.appdata.xml for distro managers
  • desktop - add stub fpm:pkg.desktop file
  • composer - update/generate composer.json for phar target
  • fixperms - limit file permissions (umask 755 / 644)
  • strip - strip debugging symbols from binaries
  • deps - resolve cross-distro library names per whohas/distromatch
  • unprefix - workaround for converting system packages back to local paths
  • lcase - lowercase filenames prior packaging
  • packfile - runs any Packfile within the /tmp/staging dir on assembled files

• Debian package signing with --deb-sign KEYNAME integrated.

• Additional --attr option to add custom control header fields (practically an alias for --deb-field, but also works for phar packages, based on attrs{}, so src plugin implicitly populates extra fields).

possible extensions

It's planned or at least considered to add:

• -t inst → a GUI/Python-based BSD/Linux cross-distro installer (reusing zip, deb, alien, pkcon, xdg-tools)

• -t msi - for proper Windows packages

• depending on further research, one of the AppImage-formats (utilizing their actual tools) might make sense

See Research on existing and inactive cross-distro packagers, schemes and initiatives.

build and installation

Meanwhile xpm installs as xpm, to keep any mainline fpm accessible. It's installed per rubygems easily. Either download a prebuilt gem from apt.io or assemble it yourself:

1. Download the xpm.tgz tarball, extract somewhere
2. gem build ./xpm.gemspec
3. gem install ./xpm-1.3.3.6.gem

Take note that this fetches a few other dependencies, even compiles ffi; so may take a few more seconds. But basically that's it.

fossil → git

I just don't fancy git. That is all. But this fossil repo will be synced back to https://github.com/prof-milki/xpm once in a while.

Or you can just sync it directly from here. Download or install the single fossil binary, then:

1. fossil clone http://fossil.include-once.org/xpm/ xpm.fsl
2. fossil open xpm.fsl
3. fossil ui

From there you could also just fossil export --git and pipe that into git fast-import.

Alternatively just use the new direct remote export:

1. wget //fossil.include-once.org/xpm/git-fast-export

It should be noted that Git is occasionally flaky with its own export format though.

links

• mainline fpm version https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm
• apt/yum repo builder https://github.com/dnbert/prm