Octopi starts automatically since the last update

Hello everyone,

Octopi has been starting automatically since the last update of Manjaro Cinnamon, so I have an icon in the taskbar. What is the point of this autostart or should I deactivate it?

Hi @Tut_tut,

I don’t even have it installed, so I think it’s safe to remove from autostart.

That’s the Octopi Notifier. Turning to red if there are updates available.

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Thank you very much! I will keep it!

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If that’s your only reason for keeping it, consider matray:

$ pamac info matray
Name                  : matray
Version               : 1.1.4-1
Description           : A Manjaro Linux announcements notification app
URL                   : https://github.com/moson-mo/matray
Licences              : BSD GPL3
Repository            : extra
Installed Size        : 245.7 kB
Groups                : --
Depends On            : libappindicator-gtk3 libgee libsoup noto-fonts
Optional Dependencies : --
Required By           : --
Optional For          : --
Provides              : --
Replaces              : mntray
Conflicts With        : mntray
Packager              : Mark Wagie <mark@manjaro.org>
Build Date            : Tue 11 Oct 2022 21:54:45
Install Date          : Thu 03 Nov 2022 12:41:30
Install Reason        : Explicitly installed
Validated By          : Signature
Backup files          : --

It’s what I use for notifications.

You should be using pamac-gtk3. octopi is a qt program, but of course its your choice.

Unfortunately, I still don’t understand it, I’ve already done some research: Octopi is a package management program like synaptic under Ubuntu, right? So can I see in Octopi which packages I have installed?

Of course, I use pamac for installations. Isn’t this program Manjaro’s package manager?

So is Octopi superfluous? And what does pamac-gtk3 mean as a package, isn’t it the package manager or am I wrong?

I would be grateful for an explanation!

By the way on my notebook:

pamac info matray
Name                          : matray
Version                       : 1.1.4-1
Beschreibung                  : A Manjaro Linux announcements notification app
URL                           : https://github.com/moson-mo/matray
Lizenzen                      : BSD GPL3
Paketquelle                   : extra
Installierte Größe            : 245,7 KB
Gruppen                       : --
Hängt ab von                  : libappindicator-gtk3 libgee libsoup noto-fonts
Optionale Abhängigkeiten      : --
Stellt bereit                 : --
Ersetzt                       : mntray
Konflikt mit                  : mntray
Packer                        : Mark Wagie <mark@manjaro.org>
Erstelldatum                  : Di 11 Okt 2022 21:54:45 CEST
Validiert von                 : MD5 Sum  SHA-256 Sum  Signature

Octopi was used before pamac was developed, if I understand correctly. @Aragorn would be able to confirm whether I’m correct or not.

And yes, pamac was built by Manjaro for Manjaro. It uses libalpm in the back, which is Arch Linux’s pacman’s library.

It might not have been, but it, indeed, seems to have become so. I don’t even have it installed.

It’s the GTK3 frontend GUI for pamac. There’s also pamac-gtk which is the GTL4 GUI:

$ pamac seach pamac-gtk
pamac-debug  11.7.1-3                                                      extra
    Detached debugging symbols for pamac
pamac-gtk3-debug  10.6.0-4                                                 extra
    Detached debugging symbols for pamac-gtk3
pamac-gtk3  10.6.0-4                                                       extra
    A Package Manager based on libalpm with AUR and Appstream support (GTK3)
pamac-gtk  11.7.1-3 [Installed]                                            extra
    A Package Manager based on libalpm with AUR and Appstream support (GTK4)

No, the package manager is pamac. pamac-gtk or which ever are just GUI frontends.

Feel free to install matay to keep track of announcements:

pamac install matray
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Thank you very much!
Done: matray installed - octopi deinstalled

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Hmm, no… octopi was the default GUI front-end for package management in certain editions of Manjaro — for instance, it was the default for the Plasma edition back when I installed Manjaro in April 2019 — but pamac was already being used in the Xfce and GNOME editions, and the pamac GUI was pushed back onto my system with a later update, even after I had first manually removed it.

Somebody up in the higher echelons of the Manjaruminati — I’m not going to be naming any names, but let’s just say that he’s got red hair and that he natively speaks German :stuck_out_tongue: — once had the (not so) brilliant idea of dropping pacman altogether and insisting on making pamac the default and only package manager on all official Manjaro installation media, as well as making Snaps and/or FlatPaks the default package format in Manjaro. :fearful:

Luckily a number of brave and bold Manjaruminati warriors — myself included — were able to sway the red-haired German individual from his dastardly delusions, and thus, spare the planet from these unspeakably fiendish evils that would have utterly ruined Manjaro’s credibility as a robust and reliable rolling-release distribution, as well as that it would have eternally vilified the righteous Manjaruminati in the eyes of all users of Arch-derivative distributions.

:crazy_face:


octopi works differently to how pamac works.

  • pamac is a fully-blown ALPM-compatible package manager in the guise of a software store, through which you can install software from both the repositories and the AUR (if enabled), as well as AppImages, Snaps and FlatPaks.

  • octopi is a graphical front-end to pacman — with pacman itself being the official package manager from Arch Linux — and, with assistance from an AUR helper like yay or trizen, both of which are wrappers around pacman, it also offers access to the AUR (if enabled).

Overall — but bear in mind that this is my personal experience — octopi has so far always been more reliable than pamac, but then again, its design is also a lot simpler. It’s only a GUI front-end to pacman and to AUR helpers which are themselves only wrappers around pacman, while pamac uses the ALPM package format and the ALPM database but is a completely separate package manager that was specifically written for Manjaro from the ground up.

Personally, I prefer using pacman, but for consulting the repos or the AUR on the nature and/or origins of a package, and for installing or removing small amounts of packages outside of the update process, I tend to open up octopi.

I also use octopi as the system tray notifier for updates, but then again, I’m on Plasma, and octopi is qt-based, while pamac-manager — i.e. the pamac GUI — uses gtk, a wicked abomination developed and maintained by despicably malevolent orcses and trollses from the darkest depths of Mordor.

I do however on occasion use the command-line version of pamac for installing something from the AUR, if need be. But even that has not been without any problems, in which case I will then fall back onto yay or trizen — the latter is itself from the AUR, because yay is the only AUR helper supplied in the official Manjaro repo.

:smiling_imp:

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I remember that. I was really alarmed.

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