# Is there synaptic alternative?



## for.ggame.playing (Aug 21, 2020)

Hi there, I love both desktop and server version of FreeBSD. Recently I was working with other linux distro as well, and I noticed one, let's say principal, difference: on Debian based linux distributions synaptic package manager comes in handy and it is truly useful and makes people more productive. So, my question is: is there any GUI tool for managing ports and packages?


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## Zvoni (Aug 21, 2020)

For Desktop: ports-mgmt/octopkg  (Packages only? Never used it)
For CLI: ports-mgmt/poudriere or ports-mgmt/synth. I'm using poudriere


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## ekvz (Aug 21, 2020)

Apologies if this is considered offtopic but imo doing anything that requires root in a regular desktop environment is not a good idea security wise. It might be fine with some clever multi session setup where you have a dedicated session/vt for doing graphical administration but in general i would advise against it even if i can actually see it being advantageous in certain circumstances.


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 21, 2020)

ekvz said:


> Apologies if this is considered offtopic but imo doing anything that requires root in a regular desktop environment is not a good idea security wise. It might be fine with some clever multi session setup where you have a dedicated session/vt for doing graphical administration but in general i would advise against it even if i can actually see it being advantageous in certain circumstances.



Why do you think Linux solutions doesn't need root to install packages? They only wrap sudo (or something) to work behind the scenes when installing the packages... basically trying to create a fool proof solution. We don't do fool proof solutions since our target audience are professionals and serious (advanced) hobbyists, who are expected to know how to deal with UNIX systems, and are ready to shoot themselves on the foot and learn with they own mistakes.


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## ekvz (Aug 21, 2020)

rigoletto@ said:


> Why do you think Linux solutions doesn't need root to install packages? They only wrap sudo (or something) to work behind the scenes when installing the packages... basically trying to create a fool proof solution. We don't do fool proof solutions since our target audience are professionals and serious (advanced) hobbyists, who are expected to know how to deal with UNIX systems, and are ready to shoot themselves on the foot and learn with they own mistakes.



I am confused. I think there is some kind of a misunderstanding here. I am not sure how Linux or not needing root to install packages got into the picture. Of course you need root to install packages. What i am saying is that running programs as root from a graphical environment is usually not ideal since afaik X11 is not very good at isolating different applications/windows so while you type your root password it could very well be logged by another rouge application or something similar. Switching to another VT (usually text based) and doing your administrative work there would avoid that risk.

P.S.: I don't know if it's your intention to imply that just because i am a Linux user i am likely to use sudo but if you do please note that i'd happen to find that (jokingly) offensive as in like 15 years i've never used sudo on any of my machines. Actually it's one of the trends i really dislike about Linux.

Edit: If you were hinting at my advise coming across as patronizing i got the message.


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 21, 2020)

ekvz said:


> I am confused. I think there is some kind of a misunderstanding here. I am not sure how Linux or not needing root to install packages got into the picture.





ekvz said:


> Apologies if this is considered offtopic but imo doing anything that requires root in a regular desktop environment is not a good idea security wise.



Since the subject is package management, this is exactly what you said... hard to find anyone switching back-and-forth to console every time he/she needs to run commands instead of using a regular terminal.



ekvz said:


> P.S.: I don't know if it's your intention to imply that just because i am a Linux user i am likely to use sudo but if you do please note that i'd happen to find that (jokingly) offensive as in like 15 years i've never used sudo on any of my machines. Actually it's one of the trends i really dislike about Linux.



We don't imply things in here, we are objective... If you don't use sudo(8) good for you, a lot of people use it and a lot other people use doas(1) these days, and there are a lot of situations where they can be quite useful and safer than fully logging on root, since you can restrict what can be done by root when using these tools.

In regards to ports-mgmt/octopkg, I never used it and I have no idea of how it works hence I'm not commenting on it.


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## ekvz (Aug 21, 2020)

rigoletto@ said:


> Since the subject is package management, this is exactly what you said... hard to find anyone switching back-and-forth to console every time he/she needs to run commands instead of using a regular terminal.



Well, you just found one. I admit it takes a bit of time to get used to but after that it's not as strange as it sounds imo. Even my eMail client is on another terminal with X running under a different user as the browser where i am writing this post right now so CTRL+ALT+Fx sees quite a bit of usage here and it feels perfectly natural. If people feel this is overkill it's fine with me. I just like the feeling of knowing that a (hypthetical) browser exploit would not get to anything sensible short of having a second stage doing local privilege escalation.



rigoletto@ said:


> We don't imply things in here, we are objective... If you don't use sudo(8) good for you, a lot of people use it and a lot other people use doas(1) these days, and there are a lot of situations where they can be quite useful and safer than fully logging on root, since you can restrict what can be done by root when using these tools.



Well, in that case i don't see how sudo ended up in this discussion at all. I am also not arguing that sudo can't be useful. It's just the sadly pretty common configuration where you can just run sudo /bin/sh that is annoying me since it's pretty much going against what sudo was meant to archive (controlled access to privileged actions). Not that i'd see much use for it personally but it's pretty obvious how that functionality could be used to good effect i think.


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## Mjölnir (Aug 21, 2020)

Right click on the start menu -> Edit menu entries -> _System/OctoPkg_ -> Extended -> run as: _root_
You need to have security/kf5-kdesu installed (default for a standard KDE installation)
Done.  I can not comment on it's quality, because I did not use it yet.  There's also KDE's sysutils/plasma5-discover, but that's only for platform-independant KDE stuff, which mostly does not fit BSD's because usually that stuff is full of Linuxisms.  So use with care.

The only reason to use ports is if you want to change some port knobs.  Both poudriere(8) & synth(1) have sophisticated web interfaces to monitor the build.

Using sudo(8) to open a root shell (e.g. in a terminal window) is perfectly fine, simply because

The admin can hide the root password from the user; should the privileges be revoked, the root password does not have to be changed
All sessions started via sudo(8) can be logged & replayed (sudoreplay(8))


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## Alain De Vos (Aug 21, 2020)

I must say the "yay" in arch works nicely. I freebsd there is poudriere.


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## arnt (Aug 21, 2020)

Hi guys,
I'm arnt the OctoPkg author.
Version 0.3.0 was released last month but FreeBSD ports' version is still 0.2.0 which misses important features (and still depends on kde/plasma).
Could somebody here upgrade the port?

Instructions to build the project: https://github.com/aarnt/octopkg

Thank you very much!


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## mark_j (Aug 22, 2020)

for.ggame.playing said:


> Hi there, I love both desktop and server version of FreeBSD. Recently I was working with other linux distro as well, and I noticed one, let's say principal, difference: on Debian based linux distributions synaptic package manager comes in handy and it is truly useful and makes people more productive. So, my question is: is there any GUI tool for managing ports and packages?


If I recall synsptic it's a gui package manager that categorises them, allowing searching etc? I am not aware of one  but I've not tried too hard to look for one.

Also, FreeBSD is *NOT* another "linux distro". It's not Linux.


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## wolffnx (Aug 22, 2020)

I try it  https://github.com/aarnt/octopkg , is the most close to synaptic but no complete
-package managent
-view the contents of packages
-search for one(only installed)
-the only thing is missing is the "categories" seccion (like synaptics)
-and have other functions,like upgrade

very good work,easy to read and see for new users


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## arnt (Aug 22, 2020)

wolffnx said:


> I try it  https://github.com/aarnt/octopkg , is the most close to synaptic but no complete
> -package managent
> -view the contents of packages
> -search for one(only installed)
> ...



Hi wolffnx,

Thanks. You can search for remote packages by using "Ctrl+I" shortcut or clicking on the "package with a plus sign" icon.
And you can upgrade your packages too, by first checking for updates using the first button at the toolbar. If there are updates available, the next button (the green one) will become enabled.


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## acheron (Aug 22, 2020)

arnt said:


> Hi guys,
> I'm arnt the OctoPkg author.
> Version 0.3.0 was released last month but FreeBSD ports' version is still 0.2.0 which misses important features (and still depends on kde/plasma).
> Could somebody here upgrade the port?
> ...


Why do you say 'still depends on kde/plasma'? There is only a qt5 dep.
PR 248835


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## arnt (Aug 22, 2020)

acheron said:


> Why do you say 'still depends on kde/plasma'? There is only a qt5 dep.
> PR 248835



Because in 0.2.0 you'll not be able to execute any action without a root escalation GUI (gksu or kdesu).
Version 0.3.0 comes with its own doas/sudo escalation GUI (derived from LXQt project).


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## wolffnx (Aug 25, 2020)

arnt said:


> Hi wolffnx,
> 
> Thanks. You can search for remote packages by using "Ctrl+I" shortcut or clicking on the "package with a plus sign" icon.
> And you can upgrade your packages too, by first checking for updates using the first button at the toolbar. If there are updates available, the next button (the green one) will become enabled.



yes, I see it, is nice to see a graphical interface for pkg
if only has a "category" section like https://www.freshports.org/categories.php it will be like synaptic


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