| Release Status | Maintained |
|---|---|
| Last Release | 6.1.0, 2024-03-04 |
| Language(s) | C |
| Developer(s) | Arch Linux |
| Website | pacman.archlinux.page |
Intro
The Linux distribution Arch Linux and its derivatives usually use a package manager called Pacman, invokable as pacman. More information can be found on the relevant Arch Wiki page, located here. Pacman is a binary distribution package manager, and only has builds for x86_64, though some have tried creating alternative ports. The most common usages of Pacman are to install, search, update, and query packages.
Flags
Pacman uses a flag scheme involving one main flag (uppercase) and many minor flags (lowercase). The most commonly used main flags are -S for "sync", -R for removal, and -Q for querying. Sync and query are similar, but sync looks for (and installs) packages from the Arch Linux repositories, while query only finds currently installed packages.
Minor flags may be appended to the main flags, slightly changing their behavior. For example, -Su upgrades a package and -Ss searches for them, both via the online repositories.
Common Usages
Here are some common usages of Pacman. In all cases where applicable, the given operation can also be performed on multiple packages at once by simply writing them all out separated by a space, i.e. pacman -S package1 package2
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
pacman -S package-name
|
(Re)install a given package |
pacman -Ss search-termpacman -Qs search-term
|
Search the online repositories or local package database for a given package |
pacman -Si package-namepacman -Qi package-name
|
Get info about a package from the online repositories or local package database |
pacman -Syu
|
Update system's packages |
pacman -Syyu
|
Update system's packages, forcing a listing update |
pacman -R package-name
|
Remove a given package |
pacman -Rs package-name
|
Remove package and its unneeded dependencies |
pacman -Rsc package-name
|
Remove a package and all of its dependencies, even if need by other packages |
pacman -Qdt
|
List packages installed as dependencies that are no longer needed- colloq. orphans |
Safe Package Removal
When removing packages, -Rsc should be used sparingly. If you wish to remove unneeded dependencies to save space (or for other reasons), use -Rs, or simply remove with -R and find the orphaned packages using -Qdt. If the q flag is added, the output will be "quiet" and can be chained with another -R command, i.e. pacman -R $(pacman -Qdtq)
TL;DR
Use -R to remove a package, -Rs to remove a package and its dependencies, and pacman -R $(pacman -Qdtq) to remove all orphans.