📦 metapkg

A lightweight, local package management tool for managing packages across different package managers.

🤔 What is metapkg?

metapkg is a straightforward command line tool designed to help users manage the installation of packages on their local machines across multiple package managers such as apt, dnf, and snap. It provides a simple way to install and track packages with a simple configuration file without the complexity of full-scale package managers such as Ansible or Nix.

✨ Features

• 💻 Local package installation
• 🤝 Compatibility with existing system package managers
• 📘 Simple configuration file
• 🧪 Handle scripted installations using system shell commands

⚠️ Limitations

To keep things simple, metapkg does not:

• 🚫 Automatically install package dependencies
• 🌐 Manage packages on remote machines
• 🔄 Install package updates directly (use your system package manager for this)
• 🧪 Handle complex installation recipes

🚀 Getting Started

To get started with metapkg, follow these steps to download the Go source and build it:

1. Ensure you have Go installed on your system (version 1.23 or later is recommended).

2. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/kenliu/metapkg.git
   cd metapkg
   

3. Build the project:

   go build -o bin ./...
   

   This command will compile all packages in the project and its subdirectories, creating an executable named metapkg in the bin directory.

4. (Optional) Add the bin directory to your PATH for easier access:

   export PATH=$PATH:$(pwd)/bin
   

   You can add this line to your shell configuration file (e.g., .bashrc, .zshrc) to make it permanent.

Now you can run metapkg by executing ./bin/metapkg from the project directory, or simply metapkg if you've added it to your PATH.

📘 Usage

To get started, create a metapkg file called metapkg.kdl in the same directory as the metapkg executable. You can use this simple example metapkg file to get started:

cowsay
sl
htop

Then, run the following command to install the packages:

./bin/metapkg install

This will install the cowsay, sl, and htop packages using the default package manager for your system.

Currently, metapkg supports the following package managers:

• dnf
• flatpak
• brew
• snap (coming soon)
• apt (coming soon)

If you want to use a different package manager to install a package, you can specify the package manager and any additional arguments as follows:

cowsay
sl
htop
org.kde.filelight "flatpak" "flathub"

This will additionally install the org.kde.filelight package using the flatpak package manager with the flathub remote.

This is just a simple example. You see a more complete example in the sample_config.kdl file.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have ideas for improvements or have found a bug, please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

📜 License

metapkg is open source software licensed as MIT. Copyright (c) 2024 Ken Liu.

🆘 Support

If you encounter any problems or have questions, please open an issue in this repository.

👏 Acknowledgements

[Recognize contributors and any third-party resources here]

Thank you for checking out metapkg. I hope it simplifies your local package management!