Shelly Package Management

Tip

The screenshots use the Adwaita theme. Your theme and version of Shelly may look different, since Shelly is under active development. However, the functionality remains the same.

Packages

On the left side of the screen there is the word packages, underneath are the three options for Packages.

• Install - Search and install packages, select which packages to install by selecting the checkbox on the right side and select install selected in top left to install.
  • Next to install selected there are several unique options to packages
    • Any - Listing all groups created in the repository you are using, you can select these groups to get more targeted packages
    • Install Local - Select a file on your computer and install it, will create sim links/opt allowing you to access the files via your terminal while not putting them in the bin.

• Update Packages - List of all packages with updates available, screen starts with all selected, you can uncheck packages to not include in update, when satisfied select update selected in top left to update all selected packages.
• Manage Packages - List of all current installed packages, their size and version. Any packages you select the check box on can be uninstalled by clicking the Remove Selected in the top left.

Step By Step Guides

Installation

We will walkthrough installing firefox as an example of doing an installation

• Click Install on the left side to open the list of packages for install
• Now you can either scroll down to find the package or use the search in the top right to find firefox
• Once you find what you want to install select the box on the right (in the picture above you will see firefox selected)
• Once you have one package selected the install selected at the top left with light up blue and you can click to install.
  • you can also at this point select any other packages you want to install them as well.
• Once you click the button an Install Packages Prompt will pop up
• Once you click yes you will prompted to enter your password and Shelly will execute the installation.

Local Packages

Shelly supports installing package archives from your local filesystem through the Install Local action.

Supported package types

There are two kinds of local packages you can install:

1. ALPM packages

These are standard Arch-style package archives that contain PKGINFO.

• Shelly recognizes them as normal packages
• They are installed and managed by ALPM (Arch Linux Package Management)
• They behave like regular system packages, including package tracking and removal through the package manager

2. Universal binary packages

These are archive-based packages intended for standalone applications.

• Shelly extracts them into /opt/shelly/
• Executable files are linked into /usr/bin/ using symlinks
• Icons are installed into the system icon theme directories
• A desktop entry is created so the app appears in application menus
• These packages are not managed by ALPM

How to install a local package

1. Open the Package screen in Shelly.
2. Click Install Local.
3. Choose a supported package archive from the file picker.
4. Shelly will detect the package type automatically and start installation.

Notes

• Supported archive formats include *.gz and *.zst
• If the archive is an ALPM package, it will be installed like a standard package
• If the archive is a universal binary package, Shelly will unpack it into /opt/shelly/ and create the necessary desktop integration automatically
• A logout might be needed for the new icon to start showing up correctly in the system

Update

• Click Update underneath install in packages
• All packages will start selected, you can unclick any you want to remove them from your update. (in the above example I removed selection of one package to do partial update, I would not recommend this but you can do partial updates)
• Then click the above update selected button this will trigger a prompt to update
• Click yes and it will prompt a password entry and launch.
• At the end of the update shelly may prompt you to restart your computer

Manage

Local Packages

Shelly lets you list and remove locally installed packages from your system with the Remove Local Packages action. These are the packages that are not managed by ALPM and were installed as standalone application directory in /opt/shelly/.

How to remove a local binary package

1. Open the Packages Manage screen in Shelly.
2. Click Remove Local Packages.
3. A table appears showing all package directories currently present in /opt/shelly/.
4. Select one or more packages from the list.
5. Click Remove Selected to uninstall them.

Notes

Shelly takes care to remove local binary packages safely:

• only package directories under /opt/shelly/ are shown
• package deletion is handled in a controlled way
• linked binaries, desktop files, and icons are cleaned up when appropriate
• standard ALPM packages are left to the normal package manager removal flow