RPMPAN

RPMPAN is a repository of RPM's of Perl modules. Every night an infinite number of monkeys download the latest modules from CPAN and try to build RPM packages out of them. Since they're only monkeys, they miss a few, but you'll find most of what you need here. The repository and main page are generously hosted at Quantum Linux Labs. The SourceForge site is just to make it easier to find. It is provided in the hopes that you will find it useful, but is by no means authoritative, official, or to be trusted. No. Seriously. These rpm packages are all built by an automatic script. It's pretty good, and you can probably use them at home and whatnot, but if I were you I'd be fairly uneasy about mindlessly deploying these in a production environment. I make no claims of fitness, etc.

So How do I use this thing?

Let's say you know you need a perl module called Apache::AuthCookie. Since it starts with "A", select "A" from the list of links at the top of the page. You'll be presented with a list of perl modules starting with the letter A. Select the link for the one you want. In our example, we'd Follow the link for "Apache", then pick the link for Apache::AuthCookie. That's all there is to it. It's that simple. If you're an apt user, thanks to help from Chuck Moss, rpmpan is now apt aware. Add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
rpm http://www.quantumlinux.com rpmpan rpmpan
He tells me this works... and I hope he's right! I'll be seeing about setting up an hdlist for Mandrake urpmi users as soon as I figure it all out, and lastly, we'll be coming up with a Search feature "real soon now".

Rpmpan slashdotted Friday, 21 August 2003

I've received lots of encouragement and tons of emails. Thanks to everyone in the community who took the time to make suggestions. Most of them were asking about apt, and hopefully that's now done, but I've had several suggestions on improving my build processes as well, and that's priceless. Thanks. I'm glad folks find this thing useful. As soon as I figure out the project admin page, I'll be posting the shell script I use. Hopefully that'll speed up the improvement process.

Other great repositories of RPM packages

FreshRPMS
Fedora Linux
rpmfind
Dag Wieers Apt RPM Repository