fnm-deb

Unofficial .deb packages for fnm (Fast Node Manager), built from the official prebuilt release binaries published on the Schniz/fnm releases page.

This repo does not compile fnm from source. It downloads the upstream fnm-linux.zip / fnm-arm64.zip release assets, repackages the single statically linked binary inside as /usr/bin/fnm in a Debian package, and publishes the result as a GitHub Release — nothing more.

This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by the fnm project.

Building the package locally requires docker, curl, unzip, and bash. The only Debian-specific step (dpkg-deb --build) runs inside a debian:13 container, so the build script works from macOS or any Linux host without local Debian packaging tools installed.

Install

curl -LO https://github.com/codexscribo/fnm-deb/releases/latest/download/fnm_<version>_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./fnm_<version>_amd64.deb

Replace amd64 with arm64 on ARM systems, and <version> with the full version string from the release you downloaded (e.g. 1.39.0-1).

The package is named fnm, same as it would be if Debian/Ubuntu shipped their own fnm package (they currently don't — see Caveats), so installing it upgrades or supersedes any existing fnm package. No special flags are needed.

Supported architectures

• amd64
• arm64

Versioning

Package versions follow Debian's <upstream_version>-<package_revision> convention, e.g. 1.39.0-1. <upstream_version> is the upstream fnm version; <package_revision> identifies how many times this repackaging has been published for that same upstream version. A packaging-only fix can be re-released as 1.39.0-2 without waiting for a new upstream fnm release. Each <version>-<revision> combination is published as its own GitHub Release, tagged e.g. v1.39.0-2, so every past revision stays downloadable — grabbing the latest release always gets you the newest revision of the newest version.

How it works

1. scripts/build-deb.sh <version> <arch> [package_revision] downloads the matching upstream release zip, extracts the single fnm binary inside, and lays it out at pkgroot/usr/bin/fnm. It checks the binary's ELF header (via file) to confirm it's statically linked — upstream fnm Linux releases are *-unknown-linux-musl static-pie builds with zero runtime library dependencies, so this package ships no Depends: field at all; the check hard-fails the build if that assumption ever stops holding, rather than silently shipping a package missing a dependency it actually needs. It copies in usr/share/doc/fnm/{copyright,changelog.Debian.gz} — the static debian/copyright plus debian/changelog.template rendered with sed and gzipped — and renders debian/control.template with sed for the package version, architecture, and Installed-Size. It then runs a debian:13 container just to invoke dpkg-deb --build (no --platform flag needed, since dpkg-deb --build only archives files — it never executes the packaged binary). This package is built once per architecture.
2. scripts/test-deb.sh <fnm-deb> <version> checks whether a stock fnm package exists in the target distro's own archive (apt-cache show fnm) and, if so, installs it first to exercise an upgrade path; today no target distro ships one, so this is a no-op check that stays correct automatically if that ever changes. It then installs the built .deb, checks that fnm runs and reports the right version, runs a functional smoke test (fnm --help, fnm list, fnm env), confirms dpkg metadata is correct, then removes the package and confirms full cleanup.
3. .github/workflows/release.yml runs on a daily schedule (and can be triggered manually). It resolves the latest upstream fnm release (or a specific version passed to workflow_dispatch), and auto-picks the next package revision for that version (or uses one passed explicitly via workflow_dispatch). The scheduled run skips entirely if a release for the resolved version already exists — its job is just to catch new upstream releases — but a manual workflow_dispatch run always proceeds, which is how you publish a packaging-only fix under a bumped revision. It then builds fnm .debs for both architectures, tests each one across Ubuntu 22.04/24.04/26.04 and Debian 11/12/13, and only publishes a GitHub Release (as two assets, one per architecture) if every install/smoke-test combination passes.

Caveats

• This is a repackaging of an upstream binary, not an independently built or audited package. Use at your own risk.
• fnm itself is licensed under GPL-3.0. The MIT license in this repo applies only to the packaging scripts and CI here, not to fnm.
• There is currently no fnm package in Debian or Ubuntu's official archives, so there's no real "upgrade from the stock package" scenario to exercise today — scripts/test-deb.sh checks for one dynamically on every run and will exercise it automatically if a distro ever adds one. If a stock package does appear later, a subsequent apt upgrade won't auto-revert you to it once you've installed this one; you'd need to reinstall it explicitly.
• No APT repository is provided; the package is distributed only as a GitHub Release asset per architecture.
• Debian 11 (bullseye) is included in the test matrix since fnm's static-pie musl binary has no glibc floor to worry about, but bullseye is near its LTS end-of-life — if its Docker image's default apt sources stop resolving, that's a real Debian-archive-lifecycle issue to address in CI when it happens, not something papered over here.

License

MIT — applies to the packaging scripts and CI in this repo only, not to fnm itself (see Schniz/fnm for its GPL-3.0 license).