reaper-updater

A small distro-agnostic shell script that downloads and updates the latest Linux x86_64 version of REAPER automatically.

Close REAPER. Run the script. Open REAPER. New version. That's the whole workflow.

Background

This is a fork of inyourfoss/reaper-updater (GPL-2.0). The original script does the actual work, scraping the download page and calling the official installer, and credit for that belongs to the upstream author.

I forked it because I wanted to remove the last bit of friction from my update routine: notice a new REAPER release, run one command, done. No prompts, no paths to type, no clicking through dialogs.

A heads-up: I'm not a shell script veteran. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to change, and I used Claude Code (via VS Code) to help with the actual refactoring and to cross-check things against the official Cockos installer code. The script is about 300 lines, half of which are comments, and the only URL it talks to is hardcoded as reaper.fm. Read it before running it.

What this fork changes

• Argument parsing works now. In the original, options with values like -p /some/path weren't getting consumed properly. Fixed.
• Less noisy installer output. The Cockos installer prints its own banner and an "install to X" line. Those collided with this script's step labels, so I pass --quiet to keep things tidy.
• REAPER gets found automatically. The script checks the two standard install locations (~/opt and /opt). If REAPER is there, no questions asked. If it's elsewhere, you get asked once.
  • The path gets remembered. Stored in ~/.config/reaper-updater/config. You only ever see that prompt once.
• It checks things before doing damage. Missing tools, corrupt download, no write permission, etc. get caught with a clear error before anything irreversible happens.
• Numbered step output. [1/7] Check dependencies, etc. So you can tell where you are.
• One real bug fix. In the original, combining -a (keep the downloaded file) with a normal install didn't work, because the file got moved out of /tmp before unpacking. The archiving step now happens at the end.

The core logic (scrape the page, download, run the official installer) is unchanged from upstream.

Features

• Detects REAPER automatically at the standard install locations
• Runs the official Cockos installer hands-off
• Optional flags to archive the downloaded file or only download
• Clear step output and error messages
• POSIX shell, tested with bash and dash

Requirements

These need to be installed:

• curl
• xmllint (usually in libxml2-utils or libxml2)
• tar
• bash (the REAPER installer itself needs it)
• xdg-user-dirs (only when using --archive without a path, or --get-only)

The script itself is distro-agnostic (POSIX shell, no package-manager calls). The commands below just show how to install the dependencies under different package managers. Any other distro works too, just install the equivalent packages.

On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

sudo apt install curl libxml2-utils tar xdg-user-dirs

On Arch:

sudo pacman -S curl libxml2 tar xdg-user-dirs

On Fedora:

sudo dnf install curl libxml2 tar xdg-user-dirs

Installation

Clone and make it executable:

git clone https://github.com/void-patch/reaper-updater.git
cd reaper-updater
chmod +x reaper-updater.sh

I run it via an alias so I can just type reaper-update anywhere:

# in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
alias reaper-update='/path/to/reaper-updater.sh'

A symlink into your PATH works just as well:

ln -s "$(pwd)/reaper-updater.sh" ~/.local/bin/reaper-update

Usage

If your REAPER is at one of the standard locations (~/opt/REAPER or /opt/REAPER), the script just runs:

$ ./reaper-updater.sh
Detected REAPER at /home/you/opt/REAPER
[1/7] Check dependencies
[2/7] Fetch current download link
    -> https://www.reaper.fm/files/7.x/reaper742_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
[3/7] Download tarball to /tmp
[4/7] Verify tarball integrity
[5/7] Extract tarball
[6/7] Install to /home/you/opt/REAPER
[7/7] Clean up /tmp

Done. REAPER is installed at: /home/you/opt/REAPER

If your REAPER is somewhere else, it asks once:

$ ./reaper-updater.sh

REAPER was not found at /home/you/opt or /opt.

If REAPER is installed in another location, enter that path below.
(The script expects to find <path>/REAPER/reaper there.)

Path [Enter for default /home/you/opt]: /home/you/Software
Saved install path to /home/you/.config/reaper-updater/config
[1/7] ...

From then on, the saved path is used silently.

Options

Option	What it does
-h, --help, help	Show help
-p, --path <PATH>	Use this path just for this run (doesn't change the saved config)
-a, --archive <PATH>	Keep the downloaded file at <PATH> instead of deleting it. Without <PATH>, uses ~/Downloads.
-g, --get-only	Just download, don't install
--reconfigure	Forget the saved path and ask again

How REAPER gets detected

When you run the script, it figures out where to install in this order:

1. Whatever you passed via -p (just for this run, not saved)
2. If you passed --reconfigure, the saved config gets wiped and you're asked again
3. The standard locations: ~/opt first, then /opt
4. The saved config file at ~/.config/reaper-updater/config
5. If none of the above worked, you get asked

A directory counts as a REAPER install if it contains the binary at <path>/REAPER/reaper. That's the same thing the official installer checks for.

Configuration

When the script does have to ask for a path, it writes the answer to:

~/.config/reaper-updater/config

(More precisely, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/reaper-updater/config if that variable is set.)

The file is a single line:

install_path="/home/you/Software"

You can edit it by hand, delete it, or run the script with --reconfigure to start over.

What happens during an update

Roughly, in order:

1. Fetch the REAPER download page
2. Pull out the current Linux x86_64 download link from the HTML
3. Download the tarball to /tmp
4. Verify it's not corrupt
5. Unpack it
6. Run Cockos' official install-reaper.sh with your install path
7. Clean up /tmp

The script does NOT touch your REAPER configuration (~/.config/REAPER/), your plugins, or anything outside the install path. Your settings and projects stay where they are.

Security

The script only talks to https://www.reaper.fm. The URL is hardcoded near the top of the script.

The thing doing the actual installation is install-reaper.sh from inside the official Cockos tarball. This wrapper just downloads and runs it.

If you want to see exactly what's happening, run it with sh -x reaper-updater.sh to trace every command as it executes.

License

GPL-2.0, inherited from the upstream project. See LICENSE.

Credits

• Upstream author: inyourfoss
• This fork was developed with the help of Claude Code. I described what I wanted to change, Claude helped with the refactoring and verified the behaviour against the official Cockos installer. All changes were reviewed and tested before publishing.