"Choosing a GUI Package Manager" is erroneous.

[commonsourcecs]

Outer link: https://wiki.cachyos.org/cachyos_basic/faq/#choosing-a-gui-package-manager
Internal link: https://github.com/CachyOS/wiki/blob/d04117d91e071807965ff6a182ef69cfb64d3c64/src/content/docs/cachyos_basic/faq.mdx#choosing-a-gui-package-manager

If you prefer a graphical interface, GUI front-ends like Shelly or the CachyOS Package Installer are considered as safe alternatives, as they are more direct wrappers for pacman functionality.

Is made up of some falsehoods.

The package-installer was only recently made more safe by no longer performing partial upgrades.

But it still recommends that users perform it!

( https://github.com/CachyOS/packageinstaller/blob/fe7a7ea82f7a20e7a49b2c3ef89805c077460247/src/main.cpp#L168 )

Finally Shelly is not a pacman frontend or wrapper at all.

It attempts to use ALPM directly, bypassing pacman, like pamac.

This stands in stark contrast to any true pacman wrapper like octopi.

[vnepogodin]

The package-installer was only recently made more safe by no longer performing partial upgrades.

it never did?

[commonsourcecs]

According to past posts it seems to be true.
And going back to examples like here;
https://github.com/CachyOS/packageinstaller/blob/c27750771942104665d796969533ed5b475ca261/src/alpm_manager.cpp#L81
Combined with the later simple -S .. would certinaly appear to be equal to performing -Sy and then -S package .. a categorically partial-upgrade.

The fact that it still uses extra dialogs to actively suggest users manually perform it is also a remnant of that earlier behavior (and its apparent acceptance).

"No db found!\nPlease run pacman -Sy to update DB!\nThis is needed for the app to work properly"

https://github.com/CachyOS/packageinstaller/blob/develop/src/main.cpp#L168

[vnepogodin]

https://github.com/CachyOS/packageinstaller/blob/develop/backend-rustlib/src/lib.rs#L289

no, it wouldn't. the code reinitializes alpm handle. it doesn't run alpm_db_update

The fact that it still uses extra dialogs to actively suggest users manually perform it is also a remnant of that earlier behavior (and its apparent acceptance).

It's neither actively suggests users to perform pacman -Sy. if the user has no the system is incorrect state already or it's the live ISO for which it such message was added as some users wanted to use packageinstaller and it was empty. as on the live iso you shouldn't perform any pacman operations (unless you know what you are doing)