dbin is a simple and extensible software distribution system, it is like a package manager, but without the hassle of dependencies nor the bloat, every binary provided is statically linked or otherwise self-contained, dbin itself doesn't even require a database to track installs, all operations are atomic and stateless. Dbin is particularly well-suited for embedded systems, we support both amd64, aarch64 and riscv64.
dbin can also work on systems other than Linux, but given that we don't have repositories offering binaries for other systems, we just don't release dbin for other systems. But, creating a repo and compiling dbin are trivial matters, feel free to start your own dbin repository :)
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) 2024-2025: xplshn and contributors
For more details refer to https://github.com/xplshn/dbin
Synopsis
dbin [-v|-h] [|list|install|remove|update|run|info|search|] <-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
--verbose Run in extra verbose mode
--silent Run in silent mode, only errors will be shown
--extra-silent Run in extra silent mode, suppressing all output
Commands:
list List all available binaries
install, add Install binaries
remove, del Remove binaries
update Update binaries binaries installed by dbin
run Run a specified binary from cache
info Show information about a specific binary OR display installed binaries if called without arguments
search Search for a binaries by supplying one or more search terms
Variables:
DBIN_INSTALL_DIR If present, it must contain a valid directory path
DBIN_CACHE_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_REOWN If present, and set to ONE (1), it makes dbin update programs that may not have been installed by dbin
DBIN_NOCONFIG If present, and set to ONE (1), it makes dbin use its builtin config, it won't create or read an existing one
DBIN_REPO_URLs If present, it must contain one or more repository's index file urls separated by ;
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 | grep a-utils | xargs dbin add # install the entire a-utils suite
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 --transparent micro ~/.profile
dbin run chromium.dwfs.AppBundle "https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=77G7ZFXVZ44EE" # Donate?
- Ability to install specific versions of binaries (by specifying the Snapshot you want to install of it)
- Ability to use user-curated repositories, as the format for the repository indexes is quite simple
Note that a repo index for
dbincan be in either of these formats:- JSON: For ease of use
- CBOR: To optimize the time it takes to load the repo
- YAML: Because this library is already used for the config, so, why not? The repo indexes can be compressed as .gz or .zst, this is specially useful for large catalogs of programs
- Hooks.
dbincan run a set of commands or a script, whenever a binary of file with a certain extension is being installed. The user can also specify uninstall hooks dbincan work without a config, and it can also run from RAM- No breaking changes. Old releases of
dbindo not break, until after at least 3 releases of newer versions. dbinwill survive even if the upstream repo disappears.dbinhas a repository index that is held in its own repo. And given that the upstream binaries are held & built in GHCR, all build logs and binaries will continue to be usable/downloadable even ifpkgforgedisappears or experiences downtime- The binaries in
dbinare specifically filtered forportability(meaning, they work on older kernel versions, they work onMuslandGlibcand even weird yet wonderful systems like AliceLinux, OasisLinux or FreeBSD (with linuxlator, so that you don't have to set up an Ubuntu chroot to install a Linux web browser and be able to watch DRM content, etc)
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.
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 (unless $DBIN_REOWN=1, dbin will not update binaries it didn't install. It won't modify symlinks either).
When info is called with no arguments, it displays all binaries which were installed by dbin. When it is called with a binary's name as argument, info will display as much information of it as is available.
$ dbin info micro
Name: micro#github.com.zyedidia.micro
Pkg ID: github.com.zyedidia.micro
Pretty Name: micro
Description: Modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor
Version: HEAD-7d16dcd-250311T073524
Download URL: oci://ghcr.io/pkgforge/bincache/micro/official/micro:HEAD-7d16dcd-250311T073524-x86_64-linux
Size: 14 MB
B3SUM: b6f32b2b8ff4b5abad126c4d0d466549f91c12eedafbc9826d0673b91d10eea9
SHA256: 3a9278b2be59a8c1fd87647f65d0cfcb9c707e823713045e93af183610ef8102
Build Date: 2025-03-12T03:02:06Z
Build Script: https://github.com/pkgforge/soarpkgs/blob/main/binaries/micro/static.official.source.yaml
Build Log: https://api.ghcr.pkgforge.dev/pkgforge/bincache/micro/official/micro?tag=HEAD-7d16dcd-250311T073524-x86_64-linux&download=micro.log
Rank: 1102
Snapshots: HEAD-9b3f7ff-250119T130748-x86_64-linux [2.0.14]
list can receive the optional argument --described/-d. It will display all binaries + their description
search can only receive various search terms, 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) (you can also put this in your config)
To begin using dbin, simply run one of these commands on your Linux/FreeBSD+Linuxlator 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 -)
- AppBundleHub
- PkgForge's repos
- Note however that pkgforge also has dynamic (unportable) programs/packages (that only run on Debian & derivatives),
dbinfilters these out, leaving behind only the static/portable programs.
- Note however that pkgforge also has dynamic (unportable) programs/packages (that only run on Debian & derivatives),
Hmm, can I add my own repos?
Yup, you'll need to provide a repository index, a JSON (or CBOR/YAML) (it can optionally be compressed | as .gz or .zst) file like this:
{
"SillyRepo": [
{
"pkg": "a-utils/ed",
"pkg_name": "ed",
"pkg_id": "github.com.xplshn.a-utils",
"icon": "https://api.ghcr.pkgforge.dev/pkgforge/bincache/a-utils/official/ed?tag=0.0.5-x86_64-linux\u0026download=ed.png",
"description": "ed from u-root but with syntax highlighting",
"version": "0.0.5",
"download_url": "oci://ghcr.io/pkgforge/bincache/a-utils/official/ed:0.0.5-x86_64-linux",
"size": "5.4 MB",
"bsum": "1f0213b604bf964dbd2ad0dbaddab1c6a64e5da7ea89febcbdb9de337a081d19",
"shasum": "e2deb5cb912858603900a890630876e0830a9a912d2a71c05742b697c98bc768",
"build_date": "2025-01-21T02:21:53Z",
"src_urls": [
"https://github.com/xplshn/a-utils"
],
"web_urls": [
"https://github.com/xplshn/a-utils",
"https://github.com/xplshn/Andes"
],
"build_script": "https://github.com/pkgforge/soarpkgs/blob/main/binaries/a-utils/static.official.stable.yaml",
"build_log": "https://api.ghcr.pkgforge.dev/pkgforge/bincache/a-utils/official/ed?tag=0.0.5-x86_64-linux\u0026download=ed.log",
"snapshots": [
{
"commit": "0.0.5-x86_64-linux",
"version": "0.0.5"
}
],
"notes": [
"Pre Built Binary Fetched from Upstream. Check/Report @ https://github.com/xplshn/a-utils"
],
"rank": 1012
},
... More Entries here ...
}NOTE: Not all fields are essential :)
A schema of the metadata format can be found here /misc/cmd/dbinRepoIndexGenerators/*/generator.go
https://github.com/xplshn/dbin-metadata/raw/refs/heads/master/misc/cmd/1.5/AM_amd64_linux.lite.cbor.zst- The binaries in this repository come from the AM package manager, they aren't guaranteed to work everywhere, unlike the binaries in the official repos. But a lot of these are useful and do work. I recommend you check it out
I am using these libraries for dbin:
- https://github.com/urfave/cli (v3)
- https://github.com/hedzr/progressbar (an attractive-looking progressbar, but with a messy API and codebase. Currently the only good alternative to mpb/v8+)
- https://github.com/goccy/go-json (index files can be .json)
- https://github.com/goccy/go-yaml (config && index files can be .yaml)
- https://github.com/klauspost/compress (index files can be .zst && .gz)
- https://github.com/fxamacker/cbor (index files can be .cbor)
- https://github.com/zeebo/blake3 (checksums)
- https://golang.org/x/term
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.
dbin is licensed under the ISC (equivalent to MIT but without unnecessary legal wording) or RABRMS Licenses, choose whichever fits your needs best.