nala, a cli front end for apt

[GreyGeek]

It can be found here, along with documentation on how to use it. Among other things it uses multi threads to download.
The version for 20.04 and earlier is called nala-legacy. Since KDE Neon is based on focal I installed the legacy version.
Here is my command sequences.

echo "deb https://deb.volian.org/volian/ scar main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/volian-archive-scar-unstable.list
wget -qO - https://deb.volian.org/volian/scar.key | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/volian-archive-scar-unstable.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install -y wget build-essential zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libgdbm-dev libnss3-dev libssl-dev libreadline-dev libffi-dev libsqlite3-dev libbz2-dev

sudo apt install nala-legacy

sudo nala fetch
╭─ Selected Mirrors ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ──╮
│ │
│ Mirror Score │
│ http://mirror.genesisadaptive.com/ubuntu/ 12 ms │
│ https://mirror.lostpacket.org/cdn/ubuntu/ 13 ms │
│ http://mirrors.us.kernel.org/ubuntu/ 21 ms │
│ http://ubuntu.mirrors.pair.com/archive/ 24 ms │
│ https://repo.miserver.it.umich.edu/ubuntu/ 24 ms │
│ https://repo.ialab.dsu.edu/ubuntu/ 25 ms │
│ │
│ Score is how many milliseconds it takes to download the Release file │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────╯
Are these mirrors okay? [Y/n] y
Sources have been written to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nala-sources.list

jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx : ~ $ sudo nala update
╭─ Updating Package List ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [3.6 MB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe DEP-11 48x48 Icons [3.0 MB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe DEP-11 64x64 Icons [7.8 MB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe DEP-11 64x64@2 Icons [44 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe DEP-11 128x128 Icons [14.3 MB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 c-n-f Metadata [265 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse amd64 Packages [144 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse i386 Packages [75 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [48 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse DEP-11 48x48 Icons [23 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse DEP-11 64x64 Icons [192 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse DEP-11 64x64@2 Icons [214 Bytes] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse DEP-11 128x128 Icons [326 KB] │
│ Updated: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal/multiverse amd64 c-n-f Metadata [9 KB] │
│ Fetched 277.4 MB in 36s (2.1 MB/s) │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────╯
All packages are up to date.

jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx : ~ $ sudo nala -h
Usage: nala [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Each command has its own help page.

For Example: `nala history --help`

Options:
--version Show program's version number and exit.
--license Reads the GPLv3 which Nala is licensed
under.
--install-completion [bash|zsh|fish|powershell|pwsh]
Install completion for the specified shell.
--show-completion [bash|zsh|fish|powershell|pwsh]
Show completion for the specified shell, to
copy it or customize the installation.
-h, --help Show this message and exit.

Commands:
autopurge Autopurge packages that are no longer needed.
autoremove Autoremove packages that are no longer needed.
clean Clear out the local archive of downloaded package files.
fetch Fetch fast mirrors to speed up downloads.
history Show transaction history.
install Install packages.
list List packages based on package names.
purge Purge packages.
remove Remove packages.
search Search package names and descriptions.
show Show package details.
update Update package list.
upgrade Update package list and upgrade the system.

jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx : ~ $ sudo nala upgrade
╭─ Updating Package List ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│No Change: https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: https://deb.volian.org/volian scar InRelease │
│No Change: https://repo.miserver.it.umich.edu/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: https://repo.ialab.dsu.edu/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease │
│No Change: http://ppa.launchpad.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│No Change: http://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease │
│No Change: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease │
│No Change: http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu focal InRelease │
│ Updated: http://archive.neon.kde.org/user focal InRelease [162 KB] │
│No Change: https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadm...min4/apt/focal pgadmin4 InRelease │
│No Change: https://deb.librewolf.net focal InRelease │
│ Fetched 162 KB in 1s (0 Bytes/s) │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────╯
Starting pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 0
Starting 2 pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 0
Done
All packages are up to date.

jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx : ~ $ sudo nala clean
Cache has been cleaned

jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx: ~ $ sudo nala show nala
Package: nala
Version: 0.11.0
Architecture: all
Installed: no
Priority: optional
Essential: no
Section: admin
Source: nala
Origin: Volian
Maintainer: Volian Developers < volian-devel@volian.org >
Installed-Size: 430 KB
Depends:
python3-anyio
python3-httpx
python3-pexpect
python3-rich
python3-tomli
python3-typer
python3-typing-extensions
python3:any
apt
python3-apt
Recommends: python3-socksio
Homepage: https://gitlab.com/volian/nala
Download-Size: 102 KB
APT-Sources: https://deb.volian.org/volian/ scar/main all Packages
Description: Commandline frontend for the APT package manager
Nala is a frontend for the APT package manager. It has a lot
of the same functionality, but formats the output to be more
human readable. Also implements a history function to see past
transactions and undo/redo them. Much like Fedora's dnf history.
Notice: There are 1 additional records. Please use the '-a' switch to see them.
jerry@jerry-hp17cn1xxx : ~ $

[oldgeek]

I have been using Nala ever since I saw it demonstrated by Chris Titus on Youtube. It is indeed better than Apt, visually speaking, and downloads faster as well. I keep a list of common commands close to my computer and have made an alias for the upgrade command.

[GreyGeek]

Hey, Chris TItus's video is where I first learned about it as well. Now it is my go to tool.