pacman-debian

A package manager that adopts the Arch Linux pacman command-line syntax while operating directly on Debian/Ubuntu .deb packages. It manages packages at the dpkg level — bypassing APT — and also supports native Arch Linux .pkg.tar.zst packages (including AUR compatibility via yay with a bundled libalpm).

Introduction

Goals

• Provide a consistent, pacman-style CLI for package management on Debian-based systems, eliminating the conceptual overhead of switching between apt, dpkg, and their various frontends.
• Support multi-repository setups combining Debian/Ubuntu and Arch Linux repositories under a single tool.
• Maintain full compatibility with dpkg's database (/var/lib/dpkg/status), allowing coexistence with APT and other dpkg frontends.
• Provide a libalpm ABI-compatible shared library so that Go-based AUR helpers (yay) can work on Debian without modification.

Project Status

Functional for day-to-day package management on Debian-based distributions. See Project Status for details.

Installation

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Debian-based distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Armbian, Linux Mint, etc.)
• Root privileges for write operations
• Build essentials: gcc, make, ldconfig (for libalpm C library)

Install

npm install -g pacman-debian@latest
sudo $(which pacman-debian-setup)

[!WARNING] npm install -g must be run under sudo or as the root user. If you install as a regular user, Node.js will place pacman-debian into your home directory (~/.npm-global/ or similar), making it susceptible to tampering, malicious modification, or breakage by other users or scripts on the system. Always use sudo npm install -g.

After setup:

sudo pacman -Sy
sudo pacman -S neofetch

Development Install

git clone https://github.com/xbodwf/pacman-debian.git
cd pacman-debian
pnpm install && pnpm build
sudo node dist/scripts/setup.js

See Installation for details.

Quick Start

# Search
pacman -Ss neofetch

# Install
sudo pacman -S neofetch

# Remove
sudo pacman -R neofetch

# Upgrade all
sudo pacman -Syu

# Query installed
pacman -Q

See Usage for complete command reference.

Documentation

| Topic | English | 中文 | |-------|---------|------| | Usage (full command reference) | docs/en/usage.md | docs/zh-CN/usage.md | | Configuration | docs/en/configuration.md | docs/zh-CN/configuration.md | | Architecture & Database | docs/en/architecture.md | docs/zh-CN/architecture.md | | makepkg | docs/en/makepkg.md | docs/zh-CN/makepkg.md | | libalpm & yay/AUR | docs/en/yay-aur.md | docs/zh-CN/yay-aur.md | | paclink (package links) | docs/en/paclink.md | docs/zh-CN/paclink.md | | Installation (detailed) | docs/en/installation.md | docs/zh-CN/installation.md |

License

GNU General Public License v3.0