10+ pacman command Examples Arch Linux [Cheat Sheet]

Introduction to Pacman command

Arch is targeted more toward power users who like to have complete customization control over how their packages are built and added to the system. Arch uses a package-management tool called pacman, which can be used to install both pre-built, binary packages and custom-built packages. The user has complete control over what gets installed, what gets upgraded (or not), and what ­dependencies are used when creating custom-built packages. Arch can use packages from its repository or can generate a package by building it on the user’s system.

The packages for Arch Linux are compressed tar files. The default compression is currently in transition from XZ to Zstandard, with file extensions *.xz and *.zst, respectively. The tar file contains both the package metadata and the files to be installed.

We can use tar to view the contents of a pacman package:

$ tar -tvf acpi-1.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- root/root     376 2017-08-15 19:06 .PKGINFO
-rw-r--r-- root/root    3239 2017-08-15 19:06 .BUILDINFO
-rw-r--r-- root/root     501 2017-08-15 19:06 .MTREE
drwxr-xr-x root/root       0 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/
drwxr-xr-x root/root       0 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/share/
drwxr-xr-x root/root       0 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/bin/
-rwxr-xr-x root/root   23560 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/bin/acpi
drwxr-xr-x root/root       0 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/share/man/
drwxr-xr-x root/root       0 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/share/man/man1/
-rw-r--r-- root/root     729 2017-08-15 19:06 usr/share/man/man1/acpi.1.

This example shows the simplicity of the package format. Several files in the root of the archive contain the package metadata. They are described in the Arch Linux Wiki and include:

• .PKGINFO Contains all the metadata needed by pacman to deal with packages, dependencies, and so on.
• .BUILDINFO Contains information needed for reproducible builds. This file is present only if a package is built with Pacman 5.1 or newer.
• .MTREE Contains hashes and timestamps of the files, which are included in the local database so pacman can verify the package’s integrity.
• .INSTALL An optional file used to execute commands after the install/upgrade/remove stage (this file is present only if specified in the PKGBUILD).
• .Changelog An optional file kept by the package maintainer documenting the changes of the package.

The .MTREE file is a compressed list of timestamps, permissions, file sizes, and cryptographic hashes. We can extract it by piping the tar output into zcat:

$ tar -xOf acpi-1.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz .MTREE | zcat
#mtree
/set type=file uid=0 gid=0 mode=644
./.BUILDINFO time=1502816810.765987104 size=3239 md5digest=0fef5fa26593908cb0958537839f35d6
sha256digest=75eea1aee4d7f2698d662f226596a3ccf76e4958b57e8f1b7855f2eb7ca50ed5
./.PKGINFO time=1502816810.745986656 size=376 md5digest=c6f84aeb0bf74bb8a1ab6d0aa174cb13
sha256digest=83b005eb477b91912c0b782808cc0e87c27667e037766878651b39f49d56a797
/set mode=755
./usr time=1502816810.602650109 type=dir
./usr/bin time=1502816810.685985311 type=dir
./usr/bin/acpi time=1502816810.682651903 size=23560 md5digest=4ca57bd3b66a9afd517f49e13f19688f
sha256digest=c404597dc8498f3ff0c1cc026d76f7a3fe71ea729893916effdd59dd802b5181
./usr/share time=1502816810.592649885 type=dir
./usr/share/man time=1502816810.592649885 type=dir
./usr/share/man/man1 time=1502816810.699318943 type=dir
./usr/share/man/man1/acpi.1.gz time=1502816810.609316926 mode=644 size=729
md5digest=fb0da454221383771a9396afad250a44
sha256digest=952b21b357d7d881f15942e300e24825cb3530b2262640f43e13fba5a6750592

 

Syntax to use Pacman command

The syntax for pacman command is as follows:

$ sudo pacman option [package]

 

Different examples to use pacman command

1. Install the package

You can use the -S option followed by a package name to install the package in Arch Linux.

$ sudo pacman -S package_name

Sample Output:

You can specify multiple package names and install them all using a single command.

$ sudo pacman -S package1 package2 package3

 

2. Upgrade the system

pacman allows you to upgrade the full system with just one command. It updates all installed packages that are out-of-date.

$ sudo pacman -Suy

Sample Output:

Here,

• -S: synchronize packages
• -u: upgrade all packages
• -y: download fresh package databases

 

3. Update the package databases

To update only the package database, run pacman command with -Syy options.

$ sudo pacman -Syy

Sample Output:

Here,

• -S: synchronize packages
• -y: download fresh package databases (Use twice to force a refresh even if databases are up to date)

 

4. Search the package

The -Ss flag allows you to search for packages in the database. It finds the given text in the package's name and description.

$ sudo pacman -Ss text

Sample Output:

Here, we are searching for the package curl with pacman. But it displays all packages that match the text curl in their names or descriptions.

 

5. Show package information

The -Si option lets you view detailed information about any Arch Linux packages. You need to provide the exact name of the package.

$ sudo pacman -Si package_name

Sample Output:

 

6. Search for installed packages

Use the pacman command with -Qs option to search only installed packages in the system. It only looks for the given text in the names and descriptions of installed packages.

$ sudo pacman -Qs text

Sample Output:

 

7. Download the package

You can run this command if you need to download the package instead of installing it on the system.

$ sudo pacman -Sw package_name

Sample Output:

The files are downloaded in the /var/cache/pacman/pkg directory as defined in the /etc/pacman.conf file.

 

8. Install the downloaded package

To install the package from a file, you can use the -U option followed by the path to the package file.

$ sudo pacman -U package_file

Sample Output:

The following command installs the iotop package which we downloaded in the previous example.

 

9. Install the package from a URL

Similarly, you can use the -U option to install the package from a URL.

$ sudo pacman -U package_url

Sample Output:

 

10. Uninstall the package

The -R option removes an installed package from the system.

$ sudo pacman -R package_name

Sample Output:

It does not delete the dependencies of the package. Use the -Rs option to remove a package and its all dependencies that are not needed for other installed packages.

$ sudo pacman -Rs package

 

11. List all installed packages

The -Q option prints a list of all installed packages on the system.

$ sudo pacman -Q

Sample Output:

 

12. View details of an installed package

The -Qi option displays detailed information about the specified package. It also shows meta-information of a package, such as dependencies, conflicts, install date, build date, size, etc.

$ sudo pacman -Qi package_name

Sample Output:

 

13. View details of non-installed package

The -Qip flags specify a query operation, information option, and a package filename for a target, respectively:

$ pacman -Qip acpi-1.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
Name            : acpi
Version         : 1.7-2
Description     : Client for battery, power, and thermal readings
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://sourceforge.net/projects/acpiclient/files/acpiclient/
Licenses        : GPL2
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : glibc
Optional Deps   : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Compressed Size : 10.47 KiB
Installed Size  : 24.00 KiB
Packager        : Alexander RÃÿdseth <rodseth@gmail.com>
Build Date      : Di 15 Aug 2017 19:06:50
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : None
Signatures      : None

 

14. Clean the package cache

pacman stores the package files in the /var/cache/pacman/pkg directory. It does not remove these files automatically when you uninstall the packages. Sometimes, these files use a lot of disk space on the system.

To clean up the package caches, execute the command below.

$ sudo pacman -Sc

Sample Output:

 

Conclusion

Now you should know how to use pacman command to manage packages in Arch-based Linux systems. You have learned to perform different operations such as installing, removing, downloading, updating, queries, and more.

We hope you have found this article helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know in the comment section.

 

What's Next

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Further Reading

man page for pacman command