bearhub/README.md

## bauh

Graphical user interface to manage your Linux applications (packages) (old **fpakman**). It currently supports Flatpak, Snap and AUR packaging types. When you launch **bauh** you will see
a management panel where you can search, update, install, uninstall and launch applications. You can also downgrade some applications depending on the package technology.

It has a **tray mode** (see **Settings** below) that attaches the application icon to the system tray providing a quick way to launch it. Also the icon will get red when updates are available.

This project has an official Twitter account ( **@bauh4linux**) so people can stay on top of its news.

### Developed with:
- Python3 and Qt5.

### Requirements

#### Debian-based distros
- **python3.5** or above
- **pip3**

#### Arch-based distros
- **python**
- **python-requests**
- **python-pip**
- **python-pyqt5**

##### Optional
- **flatpak**: to be able to handle Flatpak applications
- **snapd**: to be able to handle Snap applications
- **git**: to be able to downgrade AUR packages
- **wget**: to be able to download and install AUR packages
- **pacman**: to be able to handle AUR packages
- **libappindicator3**: for the **tray mode** in GTK3 desktop environments
- **aria2**: faster AUR source files downloading ( reduces packages installation time. More information below. )


### Distribution

**AUR**

As **bauh** package. There is also a staging version (**bauh-staging**) but is intended for testing and may not work properly.

**PyPi**

```pip3 install bauh ```

It may require **sudo**, but prefer the **Manual installation** described below to not mess up with your system libraries.


### Manual installation:
If you prefer a manual and isolated installation, type the following commands within the cloned project folder:

```
python3 -m venv env ( creates a virtualenv in a folder called **env** )
env/bin/pip install . ( install the application code inside the **env** )
env/bin/bauh  ( launch the application )
```

If you do not want to clone / download this repository, go your **Home** folder and execute the commands above, but replace the second by ```env/bin/pip install bauh```.


### Autostart
In order to autostart the application, use your Desktop Environment settings to register it as a startup application / script (**bauh --tray=1**).


### Settings
You can change some application settings via environment variables or arguments (type ```bauh --help``` to get more information).
- **BAUH_SYSTEM_NOTIFICATIONS**: enable or disable system notifications. Use **0** (disable) or **1** (enable, default).
- **BAUH_CHECK_INTERVAL**: define the updates check interval in seconds. Default: 60.
- **BAUH_LOCALE**: define a custom app translation for a given locale key (e.g: 'pt', 'en', 'es', ...). Default: system locale.
- **BAUH_CACHE_EXPIRATION**: define a custom expiration time in SECONDS for cached API data. Default: 3600 (1 hour).
- **BAUH_ICON_EXPIRATION**: define a custom expiration time in SECONDS for cached icons. Default: 300 (5 minutes).
- **BAUH_DISK_CACHE**: enables / disables disk cache. When disk cache is enabled, the installed applications data are loaded faster. Use **0** (disable) or **1** (enable, default).
- **BAUH_DOWNLOAD_ICONS**: Enables / disables app icons download. It may improve the application speed depending on how applications data are being retrieved. Use **0** (disable) or **1** (enable, default).
- **BAUH_CHECK_PACKAGING_ONCE**: If the available supported packaging types should be checked ONLY once. It improves the application speed if enabled, but can generate errors if you uninstall any packaging technology while using it, and every time a new supported packaging type is installed it will only be available after a restart. Use **0** (disable, default) or **1** (enable).
- **BAUH_TRAY**: If the tray icon and update-check daemon should be created. Use **0** (disable, default) or **1** (enable).
- **BAUH_SUGGESTIONS**: If application suggestions should be displayed if no packaged considered as an application is installed (runtimes / libraries do not count as applications). Use **0** (disable) or **1** (enable, default).
- **BAUH_MAX_DISPLAYED**: Maximum number of displayed packages in the management panel table. Default: 50.
- **BAUH_LOGS**: enable **bauh** logs (for debugging purposes). Use: **0** (disable, default) or **1** (enable)
- **BAUH_DOWNLOAD_MULTITHREAD**: enable multi-threaded download for installation files ( only possible if **aria2** is installed ). Use **0** (disable) or **1** (enabled, default).

The application settings are stored in **/home/$USER/.config/bauh/config.json**


### Disk cache
- **bauh** stores some data about your installed applications by **default** in **/home/$USER/.cache/bauh** to load them faster.

### How to improve **bauh** performance
- If you don't care about a specific packaging technology and don't want **bauh** to deal with it, just disable it via the graphical interface.
- If you don't care about restarting the app every time a new supported packaging technology is installed, set "check-packaging-once=1" (**bauh --check-packaging-once=1**). This can reduce the application response time up in some scenarios, since it won't need to recheck if the packaging type is available for every action you request.
- If you don't mind to see the applications icons, you can set "download-icons=0" (**bauh --download-icons=0**). The application may have a slight response improvement, since it will reduce the parallelism within it.
- If you don't mind app suggestions, disable it (**bauh --sugs=0**)
- Let the disk cache always enabled so **bauh** does not need to dynamically retrieve some data every time you launch it.

### Flatpak support ( flatpak gem )
- The user is able to search, install, uninstall, downgrade, laucnh and retrieve the applications history

### Snap support ( snap gem )
- The user is able to search, install, uninstall, launch and downgrade applications

### AUR support ( arch gem )
- It is **not enabled by default**. It is necessary to enable it using the UI.
- The user is able to search, install, uninstall, downgrade, launch and retrieve the packages history
- It handles conflicts, and missing / optional packages installations ( include from your distro mirrors )
- If (**aria2**) [https://github.com/aria2/aria2] is installed on your system and multi-threaded downloads are enabled ( see **BAUH_DOWNLOAD_MULTITHREAD** ), the source packages
will be pre-downloaded faster ( it does **NOT** modify your **pacman** settings ).
- Automatically makes simple package compilation improvements ( this feature can be disabled through the environment variable **BAUH_ARCH_OPTIMIZE=0** ):
a) if **MAKEFLAGS** is not set in **/etc/makepkg.conf** and **/home/$USER/makepkg.conf** does not exist,
then a copy of **/etc/makepkg.conf** will be generated at **/home/$USER/makepkg.conf** defining MAKEFLAGS to work with
the number of your machine processors multiplied by 1.5 rounded up
b) same as **a**, but related to **COMPRESSXZ** definition. If '--threads=0' is not defined, the custom file will be generated.

( for more information about these optimizations, check: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Makepkg )

### Logs
- Installation logs are saved at **/tmp/bauh/logs/install**

### Code structure
#### Modules

**view**: code associated with the graphical interface

**gems**: code responsible to work with the different packaging technologies (every submodule deals with one or more type)

**api**: code abstractions representing the main actions that a user can do with Linux packages (search, install, ...). These abstractions are implemented by the **gems**, and
the **view** code is only attached to them (it does not know how the **gems** handle the actions)

**commons**: common code used by **gems** and **view**

### Roadmap
- Support for other packaging technologies
- Separate modules for each packaging technology
- Memory and performance improvements
- Improve user experience