Simple graphical interface for Arch Linux's reflector (pacman mirrorlist generator).

ReflectorTK provides a straightforward graphical interface for configuring and running the reflector to update Arch Linux's mirrorlist. This program is a TKinter-based drop-in replacement for reflector-simple GUI shipped with EndeavourOS.

Operation

• Reads system reflector configuration (/etc/xdg/reflector/reflector.conf) and user configuration (~/.config/reflectortk/reflectortk.ini).
• Presents available countries and some basic reflector options in a GUI.
• Runs the reflector command.
• Shows a preview of the generated mirrorlist.
• Saves the new mirrorlist to the system default (/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist) using pkexec (backing up the old one) or to a custom location.

Rationale: Why recreate reflector-simple?

1. Dependency bloat: reflector-simple uses yad for its graphical interface, which pulls in the webkit2gtk-4.1 as a hard dependency. In author's case, reflector-simple was the only program requiring yad and thus webkit2gtk, wasting ~126MB of disk space.
2. Python availability: reflector is written in Python, meaning any system using it already has Python installed. This allows leveraging the existing environment, avoid dependencies, and potentially integrate the GUI with the original reflector.
3. Better maintainability: Python vs Bash (subjective).

The initial goal was to set an experiment and recreate the original bash logic of reflector-simple in Python. The results are mixed: While I had anticipated a reduced line count, the results are opposite: a ~30% increase (~1190 vs 914). However, considering the bulk of code deals with replacing interaction with the purpose-built yad with a GUI based on the clunky TKinter API, doing away with dependencies in the process, this could be seen as a win. The origin also explains why ReflectorTK intentionally interacts with reflector by parsing its output instead of using it as a Python module.

Fun fact: I don't use reflector-simple and didn't know it existed until I noticed that's what pulls bulky updates.

Requirements

• Python 3 (with the standard tkinter module). No third-party Python libraries are required.
• reflector
• polkit which provides pkexec for saving to the system default path.

Installation

ReflectorTK is available at the AUR repository for Arch Linux and its derivative distros. Install with your favourite AUR helper, such as pakku, paru or yay.

pakku -S reflectortk-git

Or download the PKGBUILD file and install with makepkg:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/reflectortk-git.git
cd reflectortk-git
makepkg -si

Or just clone this repository directly and run:

git clone https://github.com/indiscipline/reflectortk.git
cd reflectortk
chmod +x reflectortk.py

Usage

1. Launch the GUI:

   # Make sure it's executable (`chmod +x reflectortk.py`)
   ./reflectortk.py
   # Or with Python:
   python reflectortk.py

2. Configure: Initially, ReflectorTK loads system config from /etc/xdg/reflector/reflector.conf and updates it with user preferences loaded from ~/.config/reflectortk/reflectortk.ini. Current settings are saved on program exit.
3. Run & Preview: the button does its thing.
4. Save: A preview window will show the generated mirrorlist.
   • "Save to /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist" asks for authentication to save the list with elevated privileges. The existing mirrorlist is backed up to /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak.
   • "Save As..." saves to a custom location.

TODO:

• Publish to AUR.
• Rewrite leveraging reflector as a Python module.
• Propose merging with upstream reflector (that's why ReflectorTK is GPLv2).

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have bug fixes, improvements, or feature ideas, please open an issue first.

License

ReflectorTK is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0 or later; see the LICENSE file for full details.