Cross-platform packaging facility OpenPKG 2.3 released

The OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 2.3 of its OpenPKG software, another evolutionary step after a series of seven predecessors within four years.

Much valued by IT decision makers and beloved by Unix system administrators, OpenPKG is the world leading instrument for deployment and maintenance of Open Source Unix software when administration crosses platform boundaries. The unique OpenPKG architecture leverages proven technologies like Red Hat Package Manager ( RPM ) and OSSP and GNU components to establish a unified software administration environment, independent of the underlying Unix operating system.

NEW IN VERSION 2.3

Since the previous release four months ago, the OpenPKG package repository has grown again by 15%. A subset of 545 packages were carefully selected for inclusion into the OpenPKG 2.3 release, including the latest versions of popular Open Source Unix software like Apache, Bash, BIND, GCC, INN, Mozilla, MySQL, OpenSSH, Perl, Postfix, PostgreSQL, Samba, Squid, teTeX and Vim.

The major technical efforts for this release were spent on the porting of all packages to the now officially supported Unix platform Sun Solaris 10 on both Intel and SPARC architectures.

OpenPKG 2.3 is available for 21 different Unix platforms. Most notably, it is supported on FreeBSD 4.11 and 5.3, Debian GNU/Linux 3.0, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Fedora Core 3, SuSE Linux 9.2 and SuSE Enterprise Linux 9, and Sun Solaris 8, 9 and 10. Additionally, all CORE and the vast majority of BASE class packages are already available for the tentative platforms NetBSD 2.0, FreeBSD 6.0, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, Gentoo Linux 1.6.9, Mandrake Linux 10.1, HP HP-UX 11.11 and MacOS X 10.3.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OPENPKG

Portable across major Unix flavors.
Available for the supported platforms:
FreeBSD 4.11/5.3, Debian Linux 3.0, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Fedora Core 3, SuSE Linux 9.2, SuSE Enterprise Linux 9 and Solaris 8, 9 and 10.
Already available for the tentative platforms:
FreeBSD 6.0, NetBSD 2.0, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, Gentoo Linux 1.6.9, Mandrake Linux 10.1, HP HP-UX 11.11 and MacOS X 10.3.
Entirely based on Open Source software technology.
Minimum operating system intrusion and dependency.
Minimum overhead in software packaging.
All packages up to date with vendor versions as of 24-Feb-2005.
Sources of 545 CORE+BASE+PLUS packages released.
Binaries of CORE+BASE class packages provided for supported platforms.
Binaries of CORE class packages provided for all platforms.
Easy installation, updating and deinstallation of packages.
Bundled with useful and secure package preconfigurations.
Includes an abstracted and powerful run-command facility.
Virtual hosting through multiple instances on a single system.
Proxy packages for reusing packages across instances.
Build-time package variations for maximum flexibility.
Foundation to build encapsulated and self-contained environments.
HISTORY OF THE OPENPKG PROJECT

The OpenPKG project was founded in 2000 by Ralf S. Engelschall. It was first released as Open Source software in January 2002. Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in production use, and is maintained and improved by its original developers and volunteer contributors.

Ralf S. Engelschall is the principal author of numerous other popular Open Source Software technologies as well. His accomplishments include releases of OSSP components ( OSSP uuid, OSSP mm, OSSP ex, OSSP sa, OSSP shiela, etc ), Apache SSL/TLS Engine ( mod_ssl ), Apache URL Rewriting Engine ( mod_rewrite ), GNU Portable Threads ( Pth ), GNU Portable Shell Tool ( Shtool ), Website META Language ( WML ) and more.