Graphical pacman frontends - ArchWiki

# Graphical pacman frontends

This is a list of frontends for the pacman CLI tool. The list includes full featured GUI frontends, informational tools, and a variety of system tray notifiers. The list also includes categories for GTK2 based and Qt based software.

Warning: None of these tools are officially supported by Arch Linux/Pacman developers.

## Pacman frontends

### X11

- PacmanXG4 — GUI front-end for pacman. Depends on neither GTK+ nor Qt, just X11. This graphical tool allows users to do the following:

  - Install/remove/upgrade packages
  - Search packages/filter packages
  - Retrieve package info, including screenshots
  - Downgrade packages (need downgrade utility from AUR)
  - Refresh package database, synchronize mirrors
  - Update system in one click
  - Find out which package a specific file belongs to (include file with pkgfile utility)
  - Package Cache management
  - yaourt support

  http://almin-soft.ru/index.php?programmy/pacmanxg/tags/pacmanxg (ru, present "Google site translate" ability) || pacmanxg4-binAUR

- PacmanExpress — GUI front-end for pacman. Depends on neither GTK+ nor Qt, just X11. This graphical tool is a lightweight version of PacmanXG

  - Interface "all in one box"
  - No query. Install/remove packages takes place immediately.
  - Ability to run multiple operations/remove packages (be careful!)
  - yaourt support

  http://almin-soft.ru/index.php?programmy/pacmanexpress/tags/pacmanexpress (ru, present "Google site translate" ability) || pacmanexpressAUR

- tkPacman — GUI front-end for pacman. Depends on Tcl/Tk and X11 but neither on GTK+, nor on QT. It only interacts with the package database via the CLI of 'pacman'. So, installing and removing packages with tkPacman or with pacman leads to exactly the same result.

  - Browse packages available in repositories
  - Browse installed packages
  - Many ways to filter packages (word, group, repo, upgrades, orphans, explicit, foreign, fileowner)
  - Display detailed information for packages
  - Display list of files belonging to installed packages
  - Refresh package database
  - Full system upgrade
  - Install a package from a local file
  - View pacman.log file

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkpacman || tkpacmanAUR

### GNOME/GTK+

- zenity_pacgui — Zenity GUI for Pacman.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/zenitypacgui/ || zenity_pacguiAUR

- Argon — lightweight python GUI package manager

  - package installation/removal and system update, including AUR (via pacaur)
  - top-level package list
  - configurable update notifier

  http://code.google.com/p/arch-argon || argonAUR

- Pamac — A DBus daemon and Gtk3 frontend for libalpm written in Vala

  https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/ || pamac-aurAUR
  - Search, browse and install/un-install Arch packages including the AUR
  - Build and update your AUR packages in a integrated terminal using yaourt
  - Offers a tray icon with configurable periodic refresh and updates notifications

- GNOME Software — Gnome Software App.

  https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software || gnome-software

### KDE/Qt

- AppSet — Advanced and feature rich GUI front-end for Package Managers. AppSet has the following features:

  - Software sections (games, office, multimedia, internet etc.)
  - Shows homepages for selected packages in an embedded web browser
  - Shows distributions news with an embedded feed reader
  - Upgrades, installs and removes packages
  - Shows available upgrades with a Tray Icon
  - Updates database periodically
  - Informs about dependencies (for example when trying to remove a package needed by others)
  - Cache clean command (to free disk space)
  - Intelligent launcher that uses what is already installed to get administrative privileges (by searching for kdesu, gksu or at last for an xterm where it starts with a sudo command)
  - Now with AUR support with Packer as backend
  AppSet needs only QT libs as dependence for installation. It can be used in any desktop environment. Currently only works for Archlinux using pacman.

  http://appset.sourceforge.net/ || appset-qtAUR

- Octopi — Powerful Pacman frontend written in Qt. Features include:

  - LOW in resource consumption (including memory)
  - FAST
  - Supports Cinnamon, KDE 4.x, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Openbox and TDE
  - Systemtray icon providing notifier support
  - Pacman sync database, system upgrade and clean cache support
  - AUR support via yaourt or pacaur
  - Install/Re install/Upgrade/Remove selected packages – watching the output of these commands on demand – in a trasaction based abstraction
  - View the contents of installed packages (including opening and editing its files)
  - View the description of packages in tooltips, just moving the mouse over them
  Octopi is based upon Qt. If you have pacaur or yaourt installed you must click on the green alien's head icon next to the search box to search for and install packages from the AUR.

  http://octopiproject.wordpress.com/ || octopiAUR

### Ncurses

- pcurses — Package management in a curses frontend, including:

  - regexp filtering and searching any package property
  - customizable colorcoding
  - customizable sorting
  - external command execution with package list string replacements
  - user defined macros and hotkeys

  https://github.com/schuay/pcurses || pcurses

- yaourt-gui — Designed for new users who want to start using Arch Linux. Written in Bash, it offers a GUI from terminal to the common tasks of yaourt and pacman.

  http://alexiobash.com/yaourt-gui-a-bash-gui-per-yaourt-3/ || yaourt-guiAUR

## Pacman/AUR package browser

- PkgBrowser — Application for searching and browsing Arch packages, showing details on selected packages.

  - Search and browse Arch packages including the AUR
  - Purely an informational application that cannot be used to install, remove or update packages
  - By design, is an accessory to CLI package management via pacman
  - Further details on use via manual accessed from help menu
  Forum page: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=117297
  https://code.google.com/p/pkgbrowser/ || pkgbrowserAUR

- Pacinfo — Application to browse the installed packages and show information like screenshot, installed files, installation date and others. Written in Mono/GTK#

  https://code.google.com/p/pacinfo/ || pacinfoAUR

## System tray notifiers

- Aarchup — Fork of archup. Has the same options as archup plus a few other features. For differences between both please check changelog.

  Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/yTNvg.png
  https://github.com/aericson/aarchup/ || aarchupAUR

- Pacupdate — Small application that notifies the user about new updates for Arch Linux. If Pacupdate finds out that a update is available, it will display a notification in SystemTray

  https://code.google.com/p/pacupdate/ || pacupdate-svnAUR

- Yapan — Written in C++ and Qt. It shows an icon in the system tray and popup notifications for new packages and supports AUR helpers.

  Forum page: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=113078
  http://code.google.com/p/arch-yapan/ || yapanAUR

- ZenMan — Pacman frontend (tray update notifier) for GTK+/GNOME/zenity/libnotify.

  Screenshots: http://show.harvie.cz/screenshots/zenman-screenshot-2.png
  https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=25948 || zenmanAUR

- pkgnotify.sh — Simple 14 line shell script that displays the number of available updates in the dzen2 title window and a list of these updates in the slave window. Depends on dzen2, inotify-tools, package-query and optionally an AUR helper (yaourt by default).

  Screenshots: http://andreasbwagner.tumblr.com/post/853471635/arch-linux-update-notifier-for-dzen2
  http://pointfree.net/repo/?r=dzen2_scripts;a=headblob;f=/src/pkgnotify/pkgnotify.sh || not packaged? search in AUR

- kalu — Small C application that adds an icon in the systray and can show notifications for Arch Linux News, Upgrades, AUR upgrades, and watched (AUR) upgrades (upgrades for packages not installed). Also includes a GUI system upgrader.

  Screenshots: http://jjacky.com/kalu
  Forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=135773
  https://github.com/jjk-jacky/kalu || kaluAUR

## Inactive software packages

- Wakka - Next generation of gtkpacman
- GtkPacman - GTK+ frontend
- Guzuta - GTK+ frontend.
- Shaman - GUI using Pacman’s libalpm library
- pacmon - notification GUI.
- Paku - GUI alternative to Pacman.
- YAPG.

Categories:

- Arch User Repository
- Package management