apx

Apx (/à·peks/) is the default package manager in Vanilla OS. It is a wrapper around multiple package managers to install packages and run commands inside a managed container.

Special thanks to distrobox for making this possible.

Help

Apx is a package manager with support for multiple sources allowing you to install packages in a managed container.

Usage:
  apx [command]

Available Commands:
  autoremove  Remove all unused packages automatically
  clean       Clean the apx package manager cache
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  enter       Enter in the container shell
  export      Export/Recreate a program's desktop entry from a managed container
  help        Help about any command
  init        Initialize the managed container
  install     Install packages inside a managed container
  list        List installed packages.
  purge       Purge packages inside a managed container
  remove      Remove packages inside a managed container.
  run         Run a program inside a managed container.
  search      Search for packages in a managed container.
  show        Show details about a package
  unexport    Unexport/Remove a program's desktop entry from a managed container
  update      Update the list of available packages
  upgrade     Upgrade the system by installing/upgrading available packages.

Global Flags:
      --apk           Install packages from the Alpine repository.
      --apt           Install packages from the Ubuntu repository.
      --aur           Install packages from the AUR (Arch User Repository).
      --dnf           Install packages from the Fedora's DNF (Dandified YUM) repository.
      --zypper        Install packages from the openSUSE repository.
      --xbps          Install packages from the Void (Linux) repository.
  -h, --help          help for apx
  -n, --name string   Create or use custom container with this name.
  -v, --version       version for apx

Use "apx [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Docs

The official documentation and manpage for apx are available at https://documentation.vanillaos.org/docs/apx/.

Dependencies

To add new dependencies, use go get as usual, then run go mod tidy and finally go mod vendor before committing code.

Testing Translations locally

To test translations made in the .yml file locally, perform go build first in the correct directory then execute this command LANG=<language_code> ./apx man > man/<language_code>/apx.1 (i.e LANG=sv ./apx man > man/sv/apx.1).

Instructions for using Apx in other distributions

Apx has been designed in a distro-agnostic manner, allowing it to work with any distribution. (Note: The Nix integration in Apx requires SystemD)

Prerequisites

• You must have go installed from your distribution's native repositories to compile apx.
• You must have git installed to clone the repository.
• You must have curl installed for the Distrobox script.
• You must have either podman or docker installed.

Procedure

• Navigate to the directory you want to clone the repository in using cd.
• Clone apx's repository using git:-

git clone https://github.com/Vanilla-OS/apx.git

• You will have to enter the cloned repository and compile Apx with go:-

cd apx
go build

• For the Apx binary to work in the terminal, you need to add the binary to your PATH using the following command:-

sudo cp apx /usr/bin

In the above command, you can replace the path with: /usr/local/bin/ or ~/.local/bin if preferred.

• Create a directory to store Distrobox and configure Apx using the following steps:-

sudo mkdir /etc/apx
sudo cp config/config.json /etc/apx/
sudo mkdir /usr/lib/apx

• Now, we need to install the Distrobox binary and move it using the following steps:-

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/89luca89/distrobox/main/install | sh -s -- --prefix ~/.local
sudo mv ~/.local/share/distrobox* /usr/lib/apx

Note:- Apx uses a fork of Distrobox called micro-distrobox, but it is currently unavailable for other distributions, affecting the export of desktop entries.

• To fix exporting desktop entries, you will need to run the following command:-

sudo chown <username> ~/.local/share/icons -R