pactxtman

Deterministic; Textfile based Package Manager. Primarily for Arch pacman or yay.

Install & remove packages using a user-friendly package list file.

Example pacman.txt

Basic

# CORE
base linux linux-firmware
sudo make gcc
# GUI
sway swayidle swaylock dmenu
# APPS
xterm
firefox vlc

Packages are simply whitespace separated. # are comments.

More Elaborate

: System
        base linux linux-firmware
        : GUI
                : Sway # Cuz sway is the best!
                        sway swayidle swaylock
                        xorg-xwayland
                        dmenu
                xorg-xrdb qt5ct
        xterm
        : Audio
                # Modern pipewire instead of pulseaudio!
                pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse
                alsa-utils pavucontrol
                helvum easyeffects
        : Internet
                wpa_supplicant dhcpcd
        : Tools
                : Core
                        zip unzip wget
                        patch
                        sudo inotify-tools
                nano nano-syntax-highlighting
                : Dev
                        git make gcc
                        dmd dub clang
        : Pkgs
                yay-git
        fakeroot


: Media
        vlc mpv
        : Games
                steam

: Dev
        textadept vscode

: Terminal
        !xterm
        kitty

: Web
        firefox
        !chromium
        vivaldi

Lines which begin with : are groups. Groups are merely symbolic help in organizing the packages. Groups use tab indentation and are nestable.

Example output of pactxtman

How to use it

As a daemon

When running as a root daemon. Your install process is: sudo nano /etc/pacman.txt, add a package name, and save. Pactxtman will automagially install the added package. (todo: implement pactxtman -S [package(s)] which will add the packages to the end of pacman.txt to be organized later.)

When running as a daemon, saving the file will automagically trigger pactxtman to install missing packages.

Run as root: pactxtman --daemon --removeExtras. (todo: implement as a SystemD service!)

--daemon|-d tells pactxtman to watch the file for changes and run pacman with --noconfirm. --removeExtras|-e will have pactxtman remove installed packages which are not listed (The alternative is to explicitly mark for removal with !, for example !xterm|!chromium.).

When running as a root daemon pacman.txt should only have root write permitions!

As a user daemon

Not tecnically a daemon... if you run pactxtman in a terminal, then anytime you edit pacman.txt you can go the that terminal to enter your password.

Run with pactxtman --daemon --file ~/.config/pactxtman/pactxtman.txt --pacman "sudo pacman --noconfirm (todo: When running as a user --file should default to ~/.config and pacman should use sudo by default.)

Run explicitly.

Whenever you change pacman.txt run pactxtman explicitly.

How it works

When pactxt man is executed or when pacman.txt changes (if -w) it runs its process.

1. It gets a list of explicitly installed packages by running pacman -Qe (Command can be configure with --query|-q.)
2. It parses the pacman.txt file (Configured with --file|-f.)
3. It calculates packages which should be installed or removed.
4. It prints a the pacman.txt with colored highlighting of packages which need to be installed/removed.
5. It executes pacman -S (or yay) for packages which need installed allowing pacman to request confirmation (unless running as a daemon or with --noconfirm).
6. It executes pacman -R for packages which are marked explicitly for removal (!, see above).
7. It executes pacman -R for packages which are installed but not listed (implicit removal). If running as a daemon it will skip this step unless --removeExtras|-e is specified.
8. If --watch|-w or --daemon|-d it will watch for changes and repeat.

(Install & remove commands can be specified with --pacman|-m or --install|i and --remove|r.)

Project

I am developing pactxtman because I wished to use it. I am already using it now on my computer. It should be noted that it is still in development and will have bugs, especially in areas I do not use directly myself. The "More Elaborate Example" above is very close to what I am using myself.

The project source is super small, abiding by the UNIX philosofy (do one thing, and do it well).

If you want to add a feature, have at it! Feel free to submit a pull request!

I hope to have an AUR package shortly.