Slacker GUI

Slacker GUI

slacker-gui is the graphical front-end for slacker: a GTK4/libadwaita window over the same commands you would type in a terminal.

It holds no package logic of its own. There is no resolver, no GPG code and no database in it: every piece of information on screen comes from running the slacker binary and reading what it prints, and every change is made by slacker itself. If the GUI and the terminal ever disagree, the terminal is right and the GUI has a bug.

%%{init: {'theme':'base','themeVariables':{'primaryColor':'#161b22','primaryBorderColor':'#1f6feb','primaryTextColor':'#e6edf3','lineColor':'#6e7781','fontFamily':'monospace'}}}%%
flowchart LR
  G["slacker-gui<br/>(your user)"]:::blue -->|"read-only:<br/>slacker status, search, history..."| S["slacker"]:::green
  G -->|"changes:<br/>pkexec slacker install, upgrade-all..."| P["polkit asks<br/>for the password"]:::grey
  P --> R["slacker as root"]:::green
  S --> O["output shown<br/>as pages"]:::blue
  R --> W["live output and<br/>slacker's own questions<br/>in a window"]:::blue
  classDef grey fill:#0d1117,stroke:#6e7781,color:#8b949e;
  classDef blue fill:#0d1117,stroke:#1f6feb,color:#e6edf3;
  classDef green fill:#0d1117,stroke:#2ea043,color:#e6edf3;

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Starting it

Start Slacker GUI from the desktop menu, or run slacker-gui, as your normal user. It refuses to start as root (sudo slacker-gui): the whole window would then run privileged. Only the single command that changes the system runs as root, after polkit asks for the password.

It needs a polkit authentication agent in the session (every full desktop has one) and the slacker package itself. slacker-gui always ships together with slacker, so the two never differ in version.

The GUI looks for slacker in /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin, in that order, and shows the path it uses at the bottom of the sidebar. SLACKER_BIN=/absolute/path overrides the search (pkexec then asks for the password every time, instead of remembering it for a few minutes).

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The pages

Each page of the sidebar is one slacker command; its name is written under the page title.

Page	Shows	Runs	Changes it can make (as root)
Doctor	whether the setup is healthy, row by row	slacker status	-
Search	packages by name (exact, or every name containing the word with SEARCH=partial in slacker.conf), with their candidates per repo	slacker search, slacker info	Install, Remove
Updates	which repositories have updates pending	slacker check-updates	Update, Install New, Upgrade All
Changelog	the ChangeLog of a repository	slacker show-changelog	-
Installed	every installed package, with its version, date and source	slacker history --installed	Reinstall, Remove, Freeze, Pin
Repositories	repositories by priority, with their flags and state	slacker list-repos	change a repository's priority
Mirrors	the fastest up-to-date mirrors (on request)	slacker find-mirror	- (the mirror is changed by hand)
Frozen & Pins	freeze rules, pins and dependency exclusions (on request)	slacker frozen, pin, nodep	add and remove all three
History	the last 300 package changes, newest first	slacker history --last 300	-

Installed

The page for browsing what is on the system.

• Filter by name: type part of a package name.
• Sources: the button next to the filter lists every source the installed packages come from (a repository, or a build tag such as SBo when no repository serves the package), each with its package count. Tick one or more to show only their packages. It combines with the name filter: tick conraid and type lib.
• Click the source tag of a row to show only that source.
• The list starts with 200 rows; Show 200 More and Show All at its end add the rest.
• The ⋮ menu of a row: Details, Freeze, Pin to a Repository, Dependencies, Reinstall, Remove. Reinstall is offered only when a configured repository serves the package.

Dependencies

"Dependencies…" (on Installed and in a package's details) lists what a package requires, one switch per dependency. Turning one off writes a dependency exclusion (slacker nodep package:dependency), turning it back on removes it (slacker undep). The arrow on a row opens that dependency's own list. See Dependencies.

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Making changes

No command the GUI runs carries --yes. A change opens a window with slacker's live output, and slacker asks its own questions there, exactly as on a terminal: the plan with "Proceed? [y/N]", the package picker, a dependency conflict, the repositories to update. The GUI shows each question with buttons or a checklist and writes your answer to slacker, as if you had typed it.

• You always see the plan before anything is installed, because it is slacker's own plan.
• If nobody answers, slacker reads end of input and takes its default, which for every change is no.
• If the output stops on a line the GUI does not recognise as a question, the window offers Stop Answering: slacker then gets end of input and declines.
• Removing a freeze rule or a pin asks nothing in slacker, so there the GUI asks first and shows the exact command it will run.

Commands run one at a time, in the order you asked for them, so a page refresh never collides with an install.

Command Output

Every command the GUI has run, with its complete output, is in Command Output: main menu (F10) or Ctrl+Shift+O. When something looks wrong on a page, this is where to look first, and what to paste into a bug report.

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What it does not do

These stay in the terminal, on purpose: they are long, interactive or one-way operations where a terminal is the right place.

• upgrade-dist, revert-pkg, clean-system, clean-cache
• new-config: after a change the output lists any .new files and reminds you to run slacker new-config in a terminal. NEWCONFIG_AFTER never acts in the GUI (see Configuration).
• templates, download, file-search
• adding or removing repositories and tags, and choosing the mirror
• editing slacker.conf

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Good to know

• Zoom: Ctrl with the mouse wheel, or Ctrl + / - / 0. The size is remembered in ~/.config/slacker-gui/zoom.
• Search: Ctrl+F opens the Search page.
• Proxy: polkit clears the environment, so a proxy from environment variables (PROXY=env) does not reach the commands the GUI runs as root. Set the proxy itself in slacker.conf (PROXY=http://host:port); see Configuration.
• Pins are marked on Search and Installed once the Frozen & Pins page has been read (slacker lists rules only to root, so they are read on request).
• A line of slacker's output the GUI does not recognise is shown as printed, never guessed at.
• slacker's exit codes 20 (nothing found), 50 (slacker upgraded itself) and 100 (updates pending) are answers, not errors, and the GUI treats them so.

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See also

• Commands - what each command behind a page does.
• Package History - the data behind the Installed and History pages.
• Blacklist and Dependencies - freeze rules, pins and dependency exclusions.
• Security - verification and trust; the GUI changes none of it.