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Installing Erlang Software with the Faxien package management tool

All Erlware packages can be installed via Faxien. To install faxien download the universal launcher and run it.

The universal launcher can be found here

Directly downloading software from the Erlware repos with a browser

Software can be pulled directly from an Erlware repository. The main repository is at repo.erlware.org/pub. Point your browser there and you will see a directory listing that looks much like this:

Name    Last Modified   Size    Type
Parent Directory/       -   Directory
5.5.4/  2007-Nov-23 01:19:08    -   Directory
5.5.5/  2008-Jun-30 17:29:08    -   Directory
5.6/    2008-Mar-01 08:41:47    -   Directory
5.6.1/  2008-Jun-05 07:55:00    -   Directory
5.6.2/  2008-Aug-14 20:08:23    -   Directory
5.6.3/  2009-Feb-08 14:04:47    -   Directory
5.6.4/  2008-Sep-28 17:58:24    -   Directory
5.6.5/  2008-Dec-06 20:49:56    -   Directory
bootstrap/  2007-Nov-23 01:19:19    -   Directory

The numbers are Erlang Runtime System(ERTS) versions. 5.6.3 for example is the ERTS version that comes with R12B-3. Remember that if you are running R12B-5 code from R12B-3 is compatible with it; R13B-X that is a different story. Code is compatible with patch releases, 5.6.x is backwards compatible.

So, looking for a package choose an ERTS vsn. If you don't find your package in that ERTS vsn you can always drop down a version and look there. Clicking on 5.6.3 we find the following listing, or something like it.

Name    Last Modified   Size    Type
Parent Directory/       -   Directory
Generic/            2008-Jun-29 02:24:09    -   Directory
Meta/               2009-Jan-02 15:40:40    -   Directory
i386-apple-darwin9.5/       2008-Oct-09 02:20:07    -   Directory
i386-apple-darwin9.6/       2009-Feb-08 14:04:47    -   Directory
i386-pc-solaris5.11/        2009-Jan-28 11:32:53    -   Directory
i386-unknown-freebsd6.2/    2008-Oct-09 03:28:12    -   Directory
i686-pc-linux-gnu-glibc-2.3/    2008-Jul-11 13:02:34    -   Directory
i686-pc-linux-gnu-glibc-2.6/    2008-Jul-15 01:56:43    -   Directory
powerpc-apple-darwin8.11/   2008-Jul-26 03:48:12    -   Directory
sparc-sun-solaris5.10/      2009-Jan-28 14:56:32    -   Directory
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-glibc-2.3/ 2008-Nov-11 02:43:13    -  Directory
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-glibc-2.6/ 2008-Jul-14 01:16:44    -  Directory
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-glibc-2.7/ 2008-Jul-30 01:21:42    -  Directory

Here you can see a number of different architectures. If the package you are seeking to download contains precompiled binary code you would search below the string that represented your current architecture of some compatible version of it. At the top we see two other strings "Generic" and "Meta". Meta contains meta data for all releases and can be used to check to see if the package you are looking for is contained in the repo under the selected Erts version. Generic is where most packages sit, and contains packages that do not contain any non Erlang code.

Moving down the tree into Generic to search for our package we see:

Name    Last Modified   Size    Type
Parent Directory/       -   Directory
lib/        2009-Jan-29 23:16:43    -   Directory
releases/   2009-Jan-02 15:42:16    -   Directory

lib contains applications and releases contains Erlang releases. 99% of the time you are going to be seeking an application and not a release so use lib. Underneith lib you will find directories for applications and under each application directory you will find versions. Pick a version and the package file for that application will be found underneith.