pkgmap

Cross-distribution Linux package name resolution.

Different distributions often package the exact same software under different names (for example, ninja on Arch is ninja-build on Debian and Alpine; bat on Arch is rust-bat on Debian and Fedora; fd on Arch is rust-fd-find on Debian; Nixpkgs uses specific attribute paths). pkgmap provides an offline SQLite database and a companion Python library/CLI to translate package names between any pair of Linux distributions, resolve packages across all repositories, or look up native packages by upstream project name.

Data is updated daily from Repology and indexed for instant local lookups. On first run, pkgmap automatically downloads and decompresses the latest daily database release (~/.cache/pkgmap/pkgmap.db).

CLI Usage

Translate between distributions

Use --from (-f) and --to (-t):

# What is Arch's 'bat' called in Debian?
pkgmap resolve bat --from arch --to debian
# Output: rust-bat (0.22.1) [category: misc]

# What is Arch's 'fd' in Nixpkgs?
pkgmap resolve fd -f arch -t nixpkgs
# Output: fd (10.5.0)

Resolve across all distributions

Omit --to to see equivalents across every indexed distribution:

pkgmap resolve bat --from arch

Output:

alpine_3_20: bat (0.24.0)
debian_12: rust-bat (0.22.1) [category: misc]
fedora_rawhide: rust-bat (0.26.1)
nix_unstable: bat (0.26.1)
ubuntu_24_04: rust-bat (0.24.0)
...

Look up by upstream project name

Omit --from (or pass --project / -p) to resolve packages directly from an upstream project name:

pkgmap resolve ripgrep --to debian
# Output: rust-ripgrep (13.0.0) [category: misc]

JSON output

To output machine-readable JSON (great for automation and scripts), add --json / -j:

pkgmap resolve bat -f arch -t debian --json

[
  {
    "name": "rust-bat",
    "version": "0.22.1",
    "category": "misc",
    "repo": "debian_12",
    "repo_family": "debuntu",
    "install_name": "rust-bat"
  }
]

Other commands

# List available distributions and repository slugs
pkgmap repos

# Manually refresh the local database snapshot
pkgmap update

Python API

You can also use pkgmap as a Python library:

from pkgmap import resolve, resolve_all, resolve_batch

# 1. Single package resolution
res = resolve("bat", from_repo="arch", to_repo="debian")
if res:
    print(res.install_name, res.version)
    # Output: rust-bat 0.22.1

# 2. Query all repositories for equivalents
matches = resolve_all("bat", from_repo="arch")
for r in matches:
    print(f"{r.repo}: {r.install_name}")

# 3. High-performance batch resolution (executed in a single SQL query)
packages = ["bat", "fd", "ripgrep"]
results = resolve_batch(packages, from_repo="arch", to_repo="nixpkgs")

for pkg, match in results.items():
    if match:
        print(f"{pkg} -> {match.install_name}")

API Methods

• resolve(package, from_repo=None, to_repo=None, db_path=None): Resolves a package to a single match.
• resolve_all(package, from_repo=None, to_repo=None, db_path=None): Returns all matching packages.
• resolve_batch(packages, from_repo=None, to_repo=None, db_path=None): Resolves a sequence of packages in a single batch query, returning {package: PackageResolution | None}.
• resolve_batch_all(packages, from_repo=None, to_repo=None, db_path=None): Batch resolution returning {package: list[PackageResolution]}.
• list_repositories(db_path=None): Returns all repositories with package counts and families.

Configuration

By default, the database is stored at:

• ~/.cache/pkgmap/pkgmap.db

You can customize the location using:

• The PKGMAP_DB_PATH environment variable:

  export PKGMAP_DB_PATH="/path/to/custom/pkgmap.db"
  

• Or the --db-path argument on the CLI / db_path parameter in Python.

Attribution

Data is sourced daily from Repology. Repology's data is published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.