caspar offers Makefile snippets for common tasks, like installing configuration files and other stuff you've got under version control, or typesetting documents.
If you need to maintain and distribute lots of files (system configuration files for Unix hosts using a version control system, e.g.), caspar is likely useful for you. If you write documents in a markup language like LaTeX, DocBook XML, Perl POD or Markdown, and want to automate the typesetting, you'll like caspar.
Take a look at the caspar and caspar-typesetting manpages for more details about caspar. Take a look at the documentation area for even more gory details.
Read the NEWS file to find out about status of latest release. The README file might be interesting too.
caspar has a page on repology.org and is registered at the FSF/UNESCO Free Software Directory.
caspAr is not caspEr. casper is an initramfs generator suited for booting a Debian Live system, and for running a "live" preinstalled system from read-only media. See the casper Ubuntu package page for more information about caspEr.
You can browse the download area, including an unpacked package.
If you want to install caspar on your system, you can download the tar ball, or you might prefer the .tar.bz2 compressed one. However, you're likely better of installing a prebuild package:
If you're running a Debian system, you can install the caspar Debian package. Caspar is distributed with the Debian unstable release since late july 2004, the Debian 4 "etch" release shipped version 20060618-1, and caspar was shipped with all Debian stable releases since then. As of this writing (december 2025), caspar 20251012-1 is scheduled to get shipped with the upcoming Debian 14 (forky) release. You can see if there are any bugs in the caspar package reported. If you find a bug, please report it. If you're interested in tracking development of this package, you might like to subscribe to the caspar Debian package, using the Debian Package Tracking System: send an email with body "subscribe caspar" to pts@qa.debian.org.
If you'd like to install the latest caspar on your stable Debian system, you can very likely just fetch the package from unstable and install that one: there are very few (and only harmless) dependencies.
Caspar is shipped with Ubuntu Linux, via the Universe component since the Hoary release (April 2005).
If you're on an RPM based system, you can use the caspar RPM (or rebuild it for your particular system using the source RPM package).
If you're on a non-Debian-based Solaris system, fetch a Solaris package from the Solaris package area. I supply Solaris Source Packages too, available from the same place (look for .diff.gz files). These are helpful if you'd like to adjust the Solaris binary package. See the CSBS page for more information. Beware: these packages are very likely out of date! Mail me if you'd like to use a fresh RPM or Solaris package, I'm happy too build one if there's demand.
caspar git is hosted on http://git.mdcc.cx/ (since 2009-12). You can fetch a copy by running
git clone http://git.mdcc.cx/caspar.git
There's also a readonly checkout available (updated daily); using this one you can e.g. take a look at the current NEWS file.
(Since sept 2018, the caspar git repo is mirrored at gitlab.com/joostvb/caspar. NB:
This mirror is not guaranteed to be up to dateguaranteed to be
out of date (since 2024).)
(From 2003-12-17 till 2009-12-13, caspar was maintained using CVS on Debian's Alioth).