On the Solar framework blog today there's a quick new post about a change they've made to their distribution method:

I just switched the solarphp.com PEAR server over from the old Chiara_PEAR_ServerPirum, then plan and execute the conversion and server update. The presentation is not as slick as I'd like, but it's dead-stupid simple to set up, and I can tweak the CSS etc. later.

Pirum is a simpler alternative for a PEAR channel server manager that aims to make it simpler than some of the more complex options offered in the past. You can install Pirum from its PEAR server.

Fabien Potencier has written up a post detailing a PEAR channel server manager he's developed, Pirum.

Pirum lets you setup PEAR channel servers in a matter of minutes. Pirum is best suited when you want to create small PEAR channels for a few packages written by a few developers. Pirum consists of just one file, a command line tool, written in PHP. There is no external dependencies, no not need for a database, no need to setup credentials, and nothing need to be installed or configured.

All you need to do to get the tool is download the pirum file and go. It includes features like per-channel HTML pages and Atmos feed release tracking along with several other standard PEAR channel features.

There's already been one project that's made the swtich - PHP_Depend.