UPK - Ubuntu Package Kit

A unified CLI for managing packages across multiple package managers on Ubuntu systems. Shamelessly inspired by rpk from Rhino Linux.

>> upk install firefox -e
Searching for firefox across available sources...

┏━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ # ┃ Package Name ┃ Version           ┃ Source ┃ Installed           ┃
┡━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 1 │ firefox      │ 1:1snap1-0ubuntu7 │ apt    │ 1:1snap1-0ubuntu7 ✓ │
│ 2 │ firefox      │ 147.0.4-1         │ snap   │ 147.0.4-1 ✓         │
└───┴──────────────┴───────────────────┴────────┴─────────────────────┘

Found 2 package(s)
Enter the number of the package to install (or 'q' to cancel): 

Features

• 🔍 Search packages across all configured backends with live progress
• ⬇️ Install packages with interactive source selection
• 📦 Install local files - supports .deb and .AppImage files
• 🌐 Install remote files - download and install from URLs
• 🔄 Update package lists and upgrade packages
• 🗑️ Remove packages with automatic source detection
• 📋 List installed packages with filtering options
• ⚙️ Configuration system for customizing behavior
• 🎯 Exact match searching to find specific packages

Available Backends

Backend	Command Required	Enabled by Default	Notes
APT	apt or nala	Yes	Uses Nala if available
Snap	snap	Yes	Canonical's package system
Flatpak	flatpak	Yes	Cross-distro package format
Pacstall	pacstall	Yes	AUR-like package manager
AppImage	am	Yes	Application Manager by ivan-hc

Note: Backends are automatically disabled if their required command isn't found.

Installation

Grab the .deb file from releases. The .deb package automatically installs Bash completion.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Ubuntu-based system
• Optional: Nala (sudo apt install nala) for faster APT operations

Configuration

Configure preferences via upk config:

# Set backend priority
upk config set backends_priority '["apt", "flatpak", "pacstall"]'

# Disable Snap backend
upk config set disabled_backends '["snap"]'

# Enable exact match searching
upk config set always_exact_search true

# Disable interactive prompts
upk config set interactive_prompts false

# List all configurations
upk config list

# Get a specific config value
upk config get backends_priority

Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
backends_priority	list	["apt", "flatpak", "snap", "pacstall"]	Order to prioritize backends in search results
disabled_backends	list	[]	List of backends to disable
always_exact_search	bool	false	Only show exact matches in search
interactive_prompts	bool	true	Enable interactive prompts for package selection
path_downloads	string	~/.local/share/upk/downloads	Directory for downloaded files
path_appimages	string	~/.local/share/applications/AppImages	Directory for AppImages

Usage Examples

# Search for packages
upk search firefox

# Search for packages, exact match only
upk search firefox -e

# Install Firefox (prompts to choose source)
upk install firefox

# Install Firefox, exact match only
upk install firefox -e

# Install Firefox with extra args for backend (e.g., --classic for snap)
# Use -- to separate extra_args from options
upk install firefox -- --classic

# Install a local .deb file
upk install ./my-package.deb

# Install a local .AppImage file
upk install ./my-app.AppImage

# Install a remote file from URL
upk install https://example.com/my-app.AppImage

# Update package lists
upk update

# Upgrade all packages
upk upgrade

# Upgrade a specific package
upk upgrade firefox

# Remove package
upk remove firefox

# List all installed packages
upk list

# List installed packages with filter
upk list firefox

# List installed packages, exact match
upk list firefox -e

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.