Ubuntu Manpage: Nala - Front-end for libapt-pkg

NAME

       Nala - Front-end for libapt-pkg

SYNOPSIS

       nala <command> [--options] PKGS ...

DESCRIPTION

       nala is a prettier front-end for libapt-pkg.

       The  goals  of  nala  are to be similar to apt but add quality of life changes, and improve the output to
       make it more reader friendly.

COMMANDS

install

nala takes multiple packages as arguments and will install all of them just like apt.

nala downloads packages in parallel. Along with this nala can download packages from multiple
mirrors concurrently to speed up downloads further. We put in place a limit to 3 packages per
mirror so we don't put too much pressure on them. This caps out at a maximum of 16.

For more information and options run nala install --help

remove

remove works similar to the way it does in apt, but nala will also autoremove packages.

For more information and options run nala remove --help

purge

purge works similar to remove, but also gets rid of configuration files.

For more information and options run nala purge --help

update

update updates the package list. Works exactly like apt update with better formatting.

upgrade

upgrade Only Upgrades packages, does NOT Install or Remove any packages.

By default nala will run the equivalent of apt update && apt-get upgrade --auto-remove.

This behavior can be changed in the configuration file or you can use nala upgrade --no-update.

upgrade with Nala is not the same as upgrade with apt. It is equivalent to apt-get upgrade

For more information and options run nala upgrade --help

full-upgrade

full-upgrade Upgrades and Installs NEW packages and Removes packages if necessary.

By default nala will run the equivalent of apt update && apt full-upgrade --auto-remove.

This behavior can be changed in the configuration file or you can use nala upgrade --no-update.

For more information and options run nala upgrade --help

autoremove

autoremove removes any packages that are no longer needed.

For more information and options run nala autoremove --help

autopurge

autopurge purges any packages that are no longer needed.

For more information and options run nala autopurge --help

clean

clean will remove any .deb files in the archive directory, typically /var/cache/apt/archives

For more information and options run nala clean --help

fetch

fetch is the first command that doesn't have an apt counterpart.

nala will parse either:
the Debian mirror list from https://mirror-master.debian.org/status/Mirrors.masterlist,

or the Ubuntu mirror list from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors-rss

nala will then select the mirrors that it has determined are the fastest.

This is done by downloading the Release file and timing how long it takes.

For more information and options run nala fetch --help

show

show information about the given package(s) highlighted with color to improve readability.

For more information and options run nala show --help

search all packages in the cache with a regex string. By default searches package names, source
names, and descriptions.

For more information and options run nala search --help

list

list packages in the cache.

For more information and options run nala list --help

history

history is another command not found in apt. Every install, remove, or upgrade command is stored
with an id. You can use history to view these in a summary style view, and even go more in depth
with history info [id]. If you're familiar with how Fedora's dnf history command works, then
you'll feel right at home.

This command is inspired by dnf's history functionality.

For more information and options run nala history --help

EXAMPLES

       nala install --update wine
              downloads and installs wine, updating the package cache first.

       nala upgrade --no-update
              upgrades the system without updating the package cache.

       nala fetch --auto --fetches 8 --country US
              fetches 8 mirrors in the United States uninteractively.

BUGS

       Submit bug reports and feature requests online at:

              <https://gitlab.com/volian/nala/-/issues>

AUTHORS

       Blake Lee <https://gitlab.com/volitank> <blake@volian.org>

       volian-team <https://gitlab.com/volian> <volian-devel@volian.org>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2021, 2022 Blake Lee

0.16.0                                             21 Apr 2025                                           Nala(8)