whohas – Command-line utility for cross-distro, cross-repository package search

chb•about 3 hours ago

First I saw that it's written in Perl. Then I realized that the last release was 11 years ago and that the repository domains are hardcoded in the one-file script.

hparadiz•about 1 hour ago

I've been working on a GUI task manager for Linux and I've been wanting to put a "Funding" or ownership meta data next to the process or process group in the view so people can know where the upstream code lives, how to support the project, and what organizational unit "owns" that process.

So I actually vibe coded a script that does this against a sqlite db I've been considering to bundle with my task manager so it can know this stuff on the fly.

But yea this is a key missing component in Linux user space. Windows let's you encode organizational stuff into an exe but on Linux binaries don't really have that.

dilawar•about 1 hour ago

There is also https://pkgs.org ..

Fnoord•about 2 hours ago

Latest release: May 19, 2015

Abandoned, but forkable (since FOSS), and a decent idea.

Probably nowadays this gets done in Node, parsing the package search websites. Preferably, this would be done via an API though.

RunningDroid•about 2 hours ago

> Probably nowadays this gets done in Node, parsing the package search websites. Preferably, this would be done via an API though.

Repology provides an API but it's unstable: https://repology.org/api/v1

lschueller•about 2 hours ago

Yes, agree. The idea and concept is cool! Imo worth it to keep an eye on it and play with it.

First thought, which came to my mind, was a security use case to get it to a point for sbom handling and tracking. In particular, respective to all the recent package vulnerabilities.

bblb•about 2 hours ago

This kind of busy work should suit an AI agent:

Go and find me all the repolists and package/software metadata for any distro and OS ever released. Write the results to a local SQLite. Incrementally update, but don't hammer the sources to death. Provide a web UI and CLI.

embedding-shape•about 1 hour ago

Or you know, you could do that with a ~100 long script. You don't have to use LLMs for everything, especially when you're not dealing with freeform text at all, use data types and data structures, we've created the concepts for a reason.

bblb•16 minutes ago

Sure. But then I would have to use my brain to actually write code. I thought we were past that already. Also, if it's an agent that keeps scouring the net autonomously for more distros, then I wouldn't have to update the sources manually on my 100 line script.

yjftsjthsd-h•about 2 hours ago

This would pair nicely with distrobox or Bedrock Linux:)

peter_d_sherman•about 3 hours ago

List of linux package search databases:

https://github.com/sxiii/awesome-package-search

whohas – Command-line utility for cross-distro, cross-repository package search

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