pacaptr

pacaptr is a Rust port of icy/pacapt, a wrapper for many package managers with pacman-style command syntax.

Run pacaptr -Syu on the distro of your choice!

- It's nice, but wait, why reinstall?
- To be more like pacman! Use -S --needed to install.

Contents

• pacaptr
  • Contents
  • Supported Package Managers
  • Motivation & Current Status
  • Building & Installation
  • Configuration
  • General Tips
  • Platform-Specific Tips

Supported Package Managers

• Windows/chocolatey
• macOS/homebrew (with auto cask invocation)
• macOS/macports
• Debian/apt
• Alpine/apk
• RedHat/dnf
• SUSE/zypper
• External/conda¹
• External/linuxbrew¹
• External/pip¹
• External/tlmgr¹

¹: Require pacaptr --using <name> to invocate (see general tips).

Notes:

• Support for more package managers will be added Soon™.
• Don't miss the general & platform-specific tips below!

Motivation & Current Status

Coming from Arch Linux to macOS, I really like the idea of having an automated version of Pacman Rosetta for making common package managing tasks less of a travail thanks to the concise pacman syntax.

Initially, I found icy/pacapt which does just that, and I made this project to improve pacapt's homebrew (especially cask) support. (See pacapt/#117.)

After some discussions in pacapt/#126, I decided to rewrite the project in Rust to improve readability, testing, etc.

Building & Installation

PPAs might be added when appropriate.

• macOS/homebrew & External/linuxbrew install:

  # Short version:
  brew install rami3l/tap/pacaptr
  
  # Which is equivalent to this:
  brew tap rami3l/tap
  brew install pacaptr

• Windows/chocolatey install:

  # Yes, now we are still in the prerelease stage...
  choco install pacaptr --pre

• Build from source:

  # First you'll need to download the source:
  git clone https://github.com/rami3l/pacaptr.git
  cd pacaptr
  
  # To run:
  cargo run -- -S curl
  
  # To install:
  cargo install --path .
  
  # To uninstall:
  cargo uninstall pacaptr

• Packaging for Debian:

  cargo install cargo-deb
  cargo deb

Notes:

• For Alpine/apk users: cargo build won't just work, please try this instead:

  RUSTFLAGS="-C target-feature=-crt-static" cargo build

Configuration

The configuration file is $HOME/.config/pacaptr/pacaptr.toml.

An example:

# This enforces the use of `install` instead of
# `reinstall` in `pacaptr -S`
needed = true

# Explicitly set the default package manager
default_pm = "choco"

# dry_run = false
# no_confirm = false
# force_cask = false
# no_cache = false

General Tips

• --using, --pm: Use this flag to explicitly specify the underlying package manager to be invoked.

  # Here we force the use of `choco`,
  # so the following output is platform-independent:
  pacaptr --using choco -Su --dryrun
  # Pending: choco upgrade all

  This can be useful when you are running Linux and you want to use linuxbrew, for example. In that case, you can --using brew.

• Extra flags support:

  • The flags after a -- will be passed directly to the underlying package manager:

    pacaptr -h
    # USAGE:
    #     pacaptr [FLAGS] [KEYWORDS]... [-- <EXTRA_FLAGS>...]
    
    pacaptr -S curl docker --dryrun -- --proxy=localhost:1234
    # Pending: foo install curl --proxy=localhost:1234
    # Pending: foo install docker --proxy=localhost:1234

    Here foo is the name of your package manager. (The actual output is platform-specific, which largely depends on if foo can actually read the flags given.)

• --dryrun, --dry-run: Use this flag to just print out the command to be executed (sometimes with a --dry-run flag to activate the package manager's dryrun option).

  • Pending means that the command execution is blocked (a dry run or prompted to continue), while Running means that it is running.

  • Some query commands might still be run, but anything "big" should have been stopped from running, eg. installation. For instance:

    # Nothing will be installed,
    # as `brew install curl` won't run:
    pacaptr -S curl --dryrun
    # Pending: brew install curl
    
    # Nothing will be deleted here,
    # but `brew cleanup --dry-run` is actually running:
    pacaptr -Sc --dryrun
    # Running: brew cleanup --dry-run
    # .. (showing the files to be removed)
    
    # To remove the forementioned files,
    # run the command above again without `--dryrun`:
    pacaptr -Sc
    # Running: brew cleanup
    # .. (cleaning up)

• --yes, --noconfirm, --no-confirm: Use this flag to trigger the corresponding flag of your package manager (if possible) in order to answer "yes" to every incoming question.

  • This option is useful when you don't want to be asked during installation, for example.
  • ... But it can be potentially dangerous if you don't know what you're doing!

• --nocache, --no-cache: Use this flag to remove cache after package installation.

  • This option is useful when you want to reduce Docker image size, for example.

Platform-Specific Tips

• macOS/homebrew & External/linuxbrew support: Please note that cask is for macOS only.

  • Automatic brew cask invocation: implemented for -S, -R, -Su, and more.

    pacaptr -S curl --dryrun
    # Pending: brew install curl
    
    pacaptr -S gimp --dryrun
    # Pending: brew cask install gimp

  • The use of brew cask commands can also be enforced by adding a --cask flag. Useful when a bottle and a cask share the same name, eg. docker.

  • To use -Rss, you need to install rmtree first:

    brew tap beeftornado/rmtree

• Windows/chocolatey support: Don't forget to run in an elevated shell! You can do this easily with tools like gsudo.

• External/pip support: Use pacaptr --using pip3 if you want to run the pip3 command.