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Reminder: Arch Linux uses pacman not apt-get

So I had an idea that I wanted to be able to leave my room and still see the progress of a download from my phone. I have looked for preexisting programs but have found none, so I decided to write a program myself.

the first step I took was reading the pacman documentation, to see if a function that could get the current download status was. I know there is a file I can check to see if exists 

/var/lib/pacman/db.lck

which would tell me if there is a download

however I wanted to know more specifics on the download - progress and time remaining, name of download.

I have also found some GUI programs that use pacman and I was thinking of getting the source code to see if I could use some of that, but haven't found anything useful.

is there a way to find out the specifics about a current download, other than looking at the terminal that the command is running on?

Vadim Kotov
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Miles Smith
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  • And what is your actual specific question? – kaylum Sep 16 '16 at 04:38
  • @kaylum Is there a way to find out the specifics about a current download, sorry I'll update the question – Miles Smith Sep 16 '16 at 04:43
  • All `/var/lib/pacman/db.lck` is is a lock file that tell you `pacman` is currently running -- it has no information related to download. You are much better served looking at [github - bwm-ng](https://github.com/vgropp/bwm-ng) to see how to actually see an implementation of a `_band _width _monitor` that shows the current network I/O. As for `pacman`, look for what is written to `/var/log/pacman.log` (which will include the current download) that you may be able to utilize. – David C. Rankin Mar 08 '19 at 03:19

2 Answers2

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Why overcomplicate things? Just install "screen" via pacman, and start the pacman update inside a screen.. And from your smartphone, use a SSH client to connect to your local machine and access that screen.

xqzt
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You could setup an ssh server on your host machine and connect to it using a terminal emulator on your phone (termux for example) and run whatever commands you like from there. This way you'll be able to view all terminal output from your phone quite seamlessly.

Jordanous
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