pacman

• arch wiki - pacman
• arch wiki - pacman/tips and tricks

pacman -S pacman-contrib

basic operations

• update

pacman -Syu

• if using aur helper

paru

• install package (package search or search in aur)

pacman -S pkgname

• if in AUR

paru -S pkgname

• remove package and its dependencies and configuration files

pacman -Rns pkgname

searching

• package list

pacman -Q

• search for package

pacman -Qs query

• package information

pacman -Qi pkgname

• list of files installed by package

pacman -Ql pkgname

• list aur packages

pacman -Qm

• list explicitly installed packages

pacman -Qe

• list all explicitly installed native packages (not aur) that are not direct or optional dependencies

pacman -Qent

orphans

• list and remove all orphan packages

pacman -Qtdq | pacman -Rns -

• include optional requirements as well

pacman -Qttdq

• even more aggressive (account for cycles etc.)

pacman -Qqd | pacman -Rsu --print -

cache

• clear cache (/var/cache/pacman/pkg/) except for last three versions (from pacman-contrib)

paccache -r

• clear cache except for currently installed packages

pacman -Sc

• clear cache completely

pacman -Scc

rollbacks

• check /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ for old version
• use pacman -U pkgname.pkg.tar.zst if it exists
• otherwise check Arch Linux Archive available at https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/

pacman -U https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/path/packagename.pkg.tar.zst

• if downgrade, pin version so pacman doesn't update it
• edit /etc/pacman.conf and add package to IgnorePkg

# Pacman won't upgrade packages listed in IgnorePkg and members of IgnoreGroup
IgnorePkg   = pkgname

reflector

• arch wiki - reflector
• install reflector

pacman -S reflector

• automatically update mirrorlist to select fastest mirrors
• edit /etc/xdg/reflector/reflector.conf

--save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist # set the output path
--protocol https # force https
--country us # set country (get list with `reflector --list-countries`)
--latest 50 # use only the 50 most recently synchronized mirrors (--latest)
--sort rate # sort the mirrors by download speed

sudo systemctl start reflector.service

• or

reflector --protocol https --country us --latest 50 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

• I like https://iad.mirrors.misaka.one/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch :)

AUR helper

• yay
• paru
  • written in rust so it must be better
  • also forces you to check PKGBUILDs (which we do read carefully right?)
  • if migrating from other AUR helper

  paru --gendb
  

pacgraph

• pacgraph makes a graph visualization of all installed packages

paru -S pacgraph

• generate graph (svg)

pacgraph -f packages

• convert to png with imagemagick

convert packages.svg packages.png

• or ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i packages.svg packages.png

• mine below