[This post is geared towards ArchLinux users. It might confuse you if you're not part of that audience.]
yaourt, the popular Pacman wrapper, doesn’t seem to be maintained anymore and has quite some problems (e.g. UI nits, security issues, huge shell codebase). And people are starting to get tired of it because basic things stop working.
But since yaourt’s interface is so great I have decided to code up an alternative called Paktahn (after a ship type from Wing Commander).
But what can it do?
For now it supports yaourt’s two most helpful (IMHO) operation modes:
- pak query
- Search AUR and repositories for QUERY in packages names and descriptions and display the results. Ask for one or more packages to be installed.
- pak -S package
- Install PACKAGE from repositories or AUR.
Paktahn comes with a highly efficient caching system resulting in a speed that will blow your mind if you’re used to Pacman or yaourt.
I’ve been using the current version of Paktahn for weeks now and it has never failed me.
How to get it
Add one of the following sections to your pacman.conf:
# i686
[paktahn]
Server = http://viridian-project.de/~sky/paktahn/repo
# x86_64, package contributed by Gour
[paktahn]
Server = http://viridian-project.de/~sky/paktahn/repo/x86_64
There’s no x86_64 package yet since I cannot build them and no one else has contributed one yet. However you can build it from source: Paktahn on AUR. You need to install a patched version of SBCL before attempting to do so.
Development happens here: http://developer.berlios.de/projects/paktahn/
Discussion thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=77674
Contributions, bug reports, comments and praise are all welcome, as are donations since I’m an independent software developer.
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