To install a snowball use the install command:

snow-chibi install chibi-match-0.7.3.tgz

By default this will install for chibi-scheme, but you can use the --impls option to specify one or more alternates, separated by commas:

snow-chibi --impls=gauche,larceny install \
  chibi-match-0.7.3.tgz

The following implementations are currently supported:

and the special name all can be used to install for all available implementations. You can check the available implementations on your machine with the snow-chibi implementations command.

Of course, manually downloading snowballs is tedious. For snowballs in the public repository you can simply install them by the name of the package (or any library in the package):

snow-chibi install "(chibi match)"

As a convenience, to avoid quoting in the shell you can also write the name as a single word, separating components with a dot:

snow-chibi install chibi.match

If multiple packages provide the given library name you'll be given a choice as to which to install. In most cases people will choose unique prefixes for their libraries, but you may find competing SRFI implementations.

This will try to install in the standard system directory for the given implementation, invoking sudo if needed. If you don't have sudo access or otherwise want to install in a non-standard location you can use the --install-prefix option. For example, given --install-prefix=/usr/local/ show-chibi will try to install in /usr/local/share/snow/<impl>/. If you don't want to assume a given layout, you can specify the exact directory with the --install-library-dir option.

To actually find the packages you want you can either browse the packages list, or you can use the search command:

snow-chibi search match

This will search in the name, description, and other meta-info of the packages, ranking higher for direct name matches.

The upgrade command can be used in the same way to upgrade already installed packages if a new version is available, or more simply run with no argument to upgrade all installed packages. You can also list the current installed packages and their versions with the status command.

To remove a package you no longer need use the remove command:

snow-chibi remove chibi.match