dbin is a simple, Golang-based rewrite of the original BDL, it is like a package manager, but without the hassle of dependencies nor the bloat, every binary provided is statically linked. This tool is made to operate on Linux/Android systems, with plans to expand to other platforms soon, dbin is particularly well-suited for embedded systems, we support both amd64 & aarch64.
Why?
“I tend to think the drawbacks of dynamic linking outweigh the advantages for many (most?) applications.” – John Carmack. If you are looking for more in-depth arguments, see: cat-v.ORG - Dynamic Linking
I've seen lots of package manager projects without "packages". What is different about this one?
There are currently 
binaries in our repos. They are all statically linked.
$ dbin --help
Copyright (c) 2024: xplshn and contributors
For more details refer to https://github.com/xplshn/dbin
Synopsis
dbin [-v|-h] [list|install|remove|update|run|info|search|tldr] <-args->
Description:
The easy to use, easy to get, software distribution system
Options:
-h, --help Show this help message
-v, --version Show the version number
Commands:
list List all available binaries
install, add Install a binary
remove, del Remove a binary
update Update binaries, by checking their SHA against the repo's SHA
run Run a specified binary from cache
info Show information about a specific binary OR display installed binaries
search Search for a binary - (not all binaries have metadata. Use list to see all binaries)
tldr Equivalent to "run --transparent tlrc"
Variables:
DBIN_CACHEDIR If present, it must contain a valid directory path
DBIN_INSTALL_DIR If present, it must contain a valid directory path
DBIN_NOTRUNCATION If present, and set to ONE (1), string truncation will be disabled
DBIN_TRACKERFILE If present, it must point to a valid file path, in an existing directory
dbin search editor
dbin install micro.upx
dbin install lux kakoune aretext shfmt
dbin --silent install bed && echo "[bed] was installed to $INSTALL_DIR/bed"
dbin del bed
dbin del orbiton tgpt lux
dbin info
dbin info jq
dbin list --described
dbin tldr gum
dbin --verbose run curl -qsfSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xplshn/dbin/master/stubdl" | sh -
dbin --silent run elinks -no-home "https://fatbuffalo.neocities.org/def"
dbin --silent run --transparent micro ~/.profile
dbin run btop
In the case of --transparent, it runs the program from $PATH and if it isn't available in the user's $PATH it will pull the binary from dbin's repos and run it from cache.
In the case of --silent, it simply hides the progressbar and all optional messages (warnings) that dbin can show, which would always report if the binary is found on cache + the return code of the binary to be run if it differs from 0 otherwise.
--silent, it hides the progressbar and doesn't print the installation message
Update can receive an optional list of specific binaries to update OR no arguments at all. When update receives no arguments it updates everything that is both found in the repos and in your $DBIN_INSTALL_DIR.
When info is called with no arguments, it displays binaries which are part of the list and are also found on your $DBIN_INSTALL_DIR. If info is called with a binary's name as argument, info will display as much information of it as is available. The "Size", "SHA256", "Version" fields may not match your local installation if the binary wasn't provided by dbin or if it isn't up-to-date.
$ dbin info micro
Name: micro
Description: A modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor
Repo: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro
Updated: 2024-05-22T20:21:10Z
Version: v2.0.13
Size: 11.81 MB
Source: https://bin.ajam.dev/x86_64_Linux/micro
SHA256: 697fb918c800071c4d1a853d515331a9a3f245bb8a7da1c6d3653737d17ce3c4
list can receive the optional argument --described/-d. It will display all binaries that have a description in their metadata.
search can only receive ONE search term, if the name of a binary or a description of a binary contains the term, it is shown as a search result.
search can optionally receive a --limit argument, which changes the limit on how many search results can be displayed (default is 90).
To begin using dbin, simply run one of these commands on your Linux system. No additional setup is required. You may also build the project using go build or go install
wget -qO- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xplshn/dbin/master/stubdl" | sh -s -- --help
wget -qO- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xplshn/dbin/master/stubdl" | sh -s -- --install "$HOME/.local/bin/dbin"
Whenever you want to pull a specific GNU coreutil, busybox, toybox, etc, insert a bash snippet, use a *fetch tool, etc, you can use dbin for the job! There's also a --transparent flag for run, which will use the users' installed version of the program you want to run, and if it is not found in the $PATH dbin will fetch it and run it from $DBIN_CACHEDIR.
system_info=$(wget -qO- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xplshn/dbin/master/stubdl" | sh -s -- run --silent albafetch --no-logo - || curl -qsfSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xplshn/dbin/master/stubdl" | sh -s -- run --silent albafetch --no-logo -)
Hmm, can I add my own repos?
Yes! Absolutely. The repo's URL's are declared in main.go. Its simply a matter of providing a repo URL in the same format that the Toolpacks repo uses. You may skip the metadata part if you're only interested in the install/add functionality.
Good to hear, now... What about the so-called MetadataURLs?
MetadataURLs provide info about the binaries, which is used to search and update binaries, also for the functionality of info in both of its use-cases (showing the binaries which were installed to $DBIN_INSTALL_DIR from the Toolpacks repo) and showing a binary's description, size, etc. You can take a look at modMetadata's Item struct if you want to make a custom repo which's binaries appear in search, are compatible with the update functionality and also work with info.
I am using these two libraries for dbin:
Contributions are welcome! Whether you've found a bug, have a feature request, or wish to improve the documentation, your input is valuable. Fork the repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request. Together, we can make dbin even more powerful and simpler. If you can provide repos that meet the requirements to add them to dbin, I'd be grateful.
Also, I need help optimizing the cyclomatic complexity of dbin.
dbin is licensed under the RABRMS License. This allows for the use, modification, and distribution of the software under certain conditions. For more details, please refer to the LICENSE file. This license is equivalent to the New or Revised BSD License.
