pacapt - An ArchLinux's pacman-like wrapper for many package managers

pacapt is an Arch's pacman-like wrapper for many package managers (system package managers, software package managers like npm, gem, conda). For example, the command pacapt -S htop works any supported Linux or BSD machines, and that will install htop package. You only need to work with the same set of command options on any OSs and/or any software package managers. Arch's pacman is chosen, because its set of operations are simple and divided into three memorable major groups: Synchronize, Query and Remove/Clean up.

The tool supports the following package managers:

• pacman by Arch Linux, ArchBang, Manjaro, etc.
• dpkg/apt-get by Debian, Ubuntu, etc.
• homebrew by Mac OS X
• macports by Mac OS X
• yum/rpm by Redhat, CentOS, Fedora, etc.
• portage by Gentoo
• zypper by OpenSUSE
• pkgng by FreeBSD
• cave by Exherbo Linux
• pkg_tools by OpenBSD
• sun_tools by Solaris(SunOS)
• apk by Alpine Linux
• tazpkg by SliTaz Linux
• swupd by Clear Linux

Non-system package manager

• tlmgr by TeX Live
• conda by Conda

TOC

• Description
• Installation
  • Install stable Bash script 2.4.x from Github
• Usage
  • Basic options
  • Basic operations
  • Implemented Operations
• Related projects
• Similar projects
• Development
• License
• Authors

Installation

1. This script shouldn't be installed on an Arch-based system;
2. On FreeBSD and Alpine Linux, please install bash package first.

Install stable Bash script 2.4.x from Github

You can download the stable script and make it executable. On non-Arch-based system, you may use pacman as script name instead of pacapt.

$ sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/pacapt \
https://github.com/icy/pacapt/raw/ng/pacapt

$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/pacapt

$ sudo ln -sv /usr/local/bin/pacapt /usr/local/bin/pacman || true

For non-system package manager, you need to create symbolic links

$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/pacapt /usr/local/bin/pacapt-tlmgr
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/pacapt /usr/local/bin/pacapt-conda

You can also use shorter links:

$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/pacapt /usr/local/bin/p-tlmgr
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/pacapt /usr/local/bin/p-conda

noting the suffix (e.g., -tlmgr, -conda) is mandatory.

Usage

Basic operations

For system package manager

• Update package database: pacapt -Sy
• Install a package: pacapt -S foo
• Search a package: pacapt -Ss foo
• Remove a package: pacapt -R foo
• Upgrade system: pacapt -Su
• Remove orphans: pacapt -Sc
• Clean up: pacapt -Scc or pacapt -Sccc

For non-system package manager: Similar as above, however you need to call correct script name, e.g.,

• Intall a Conda package: pacapt-conda -S foo
• Remove a Conda package: pacapt-conda -R foo

Basic options

See also https://github.com/icy/pacapt/blob/ng/lib/help.txt.

Some basic command line options

• -h (--help): Print help message;
• -P: Print list of supported operations;
• -V: Print script version

Some popular options of the original ArchLinux's pacman program are supported and listed in the table in the next section.

A long list of options and operations can be found from ArchLinux's wiki.

Implemented operations

           Q Qc Qe Qi Qk Ql Qm Qo Qp Qs Qu R Rn Rns Rs S Sc Scc Sccc Sg Si Sii Sl Ss Su Suy Sw Sy U
      apk  ~        *     *     *     *  * *  *   *  * *  *   *    *     *   *  *  *  *   *  *  * *
     cave  *        *     *     *  *  *  * *  *   *  * *  *   *    x     *         *  *   *     * x
    conda  *                               *           *  *              *         *      *
      dnf  ~  *  *  *     *  *  *  *  *  * *           *  *   *    *  *  *      *  *  *   *  *  * *
     dpkg  ~        *     *     *  *  *  * *  *   *  ~ *  *   *    *     *   *     *  *   *     * *
 homebrew  ~  *     *     *     *     *  * *         * *  *   *    *     *         *  *   *     *
 macports     *           *     *        * *         ~ *  *   *          *         *  *   *     *
    pkgng  *        *     *     *  *     * *         * *  *   *          *         *  *   *     *
pkg_tools  ~        *     *     *  *     * *  *   *  ~ *  *   x          *      *  ~  *   *     x
  portage  *  *     *     *     *        * *         * *  *   *    *     *         *  *   *     *
sun_tools  *        *     *     *     *    *                                                      *
    swupd              *        *     *    *           *                           *  *   *     *
   tazpkg  *        *     *     *          *           *  *   *                    *  *   *     * *
    tlmgr           *  *  *                *           *                 *      *  *      *       *
      yum  *  *     *     *  *  *  *  *  * *         * *  *   *    *     *   *     *  *   *     * *
   zypper  *  *     *     *  *  *  *  *  * *  *   *  * *  *   *    *     *   *  *  *  *   *  *  * *

Notes:

• *: Implemented;
• ~: Implemented. Some options may not supported/implemented;
• x: Operation is not supported by Operating system;
• The table is generated from source. Please don't update it manually.

Related projects

• batch-pacapt: An Arch's pacman-like package manager for Windows
• node-pacapt: A node.js wrapper of pacapt + batch-pacapt

Similar projects

• sysget

Development

Read me first

The following message is published on project's Gitter group on Oct 09th 2018.

Hi everyone, long time no see :) I've not been using Gitter IM actively as it's not very convenient on my browser, and Gitter requires a lot of access grants to my Github profile ^.^

I've rewritten pacapt in Dlang (https://github.com/icy/pacapt/tree/nd). There are two issues remained: (1) passthrough option (2) publish artifacts (32bit binary, 64 bit binary, arm support,...) to Github/S3. I'm not sure there is any way to make this latest CI step simple and secure (Dlang hasn't had good Reproducible build yet.) Using S3 is not persistent, Github requires my personal API token...

The primary motivation of rewriting pacapt in Dlang is to support some restricted environment where Bash is not available. I picked Dlang simply it's the language I'm studying. The major parts of the project (lib/*.sh) are still in shell format. To be specific, the (binary) executable file will help to handle users' arguments and the actual steps are delegated to system shell(s).

The current stable branch (ng) still accepts active development, however it would become legacy when nd is released. Cherry-picks are required to make contributors' works on ng available on nd branch. (In case the names are confusing you, here is a tip: ng sounds like next generation, while nd emphasizes Dlang use.)

Feel free to take a look. Any comments are appreciated.

Thx

General steps

Make sure you read some instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md.

A development script can be compiled from the source code.

$ git clone https://github.com/icy/pacapt.git
$ cd pacapt

# switch to development branch
$ git checkout ng

# compile the script
$ ./bin/compile.sh > pacapt.dev

# check if syntax is good
$ bash -n pacapt.dev

$ sudo install -m755 ./pacapt.dev /usr/local/bin/pacapt

Please read the sample Makefile for some details.

License

This work is released under the terms of Fair license (http://opensource.org/licenses/fair).

AUTHORS. CONTRIBUTORS

Many people have contributed to the project by sending pull requests and/or reporting on the ticket system. Here is an incomplete list of authors and contributors.

• 10sr (10sr)
• Alexander Dupuy (dupuy)
• Anh K. Huynh (icy)
• Antony Lee (anntzer)
• Alex Lyon (Arcterus)
• Carl X. Su (bcbcarl)
• Cuong Manh Le (Gnouc)
• Daniel YC Lin (dlintw)
• Danny George (dangets)
• Darshit Shah (darnir)
• Dmitry Kudriavtsev (dkudriavtsev)
• Eric Crosson (EricCrosson)
• Evan Relf (evanrelf)
• GijsTimmers (GijsTimmers)
• Hà-Dương Nguyễn (cmpitg)
• Huy Ngô (NgoHuy)
• James Pearson (xiongchiamiov)
• Janne Heß (dasJ)
• Jiawei Zhou (4679)
• Karol Blazewicz
• Kevin Brubeck (unhammer)
• Konrad Borowski (xfix)
• Kylie McClain (somasis)
• Valerio Pizzi (Pival81)
• Siôn Le Roux (sinisterstuf)
• Thiago Perrotta (thiagowfx)
• Vojtech Letal (letalvoj)