WTF is pacman
Apparently the package manager for Arch based distributions and here I was thinking it was an old video game character. I’m sure that jokes never been made.
Anyways I’ll be likening the commands to what I would have traditionally done on Debian for the most part.
Basics
usage: pacman <operation> [...]
operations:
pacman {-h --help}
pacman {-V --version}
pacman {-D --database} <options> <package(s)>
pacman {-F --files} [options] [package(s)]
pacman {-Q --query} [options] [package(s)]
pacman {-R --remove} [options] <package(s)>
pacman {-S --sync} [options] [package(s)]
pacman {-T --deptest} [options] [package(s)]
pacman {-U --upgrade} [options] <file(s)>
use 'pacman {-h --help}' with an operation for available options
This doesn’t seem overly intuitive to me, while this command technically encompasses everything that apt would do, it doesn’t have the same user experience as other package managers. Nor does the man page really clarify how to use it to do regular user things. It does however seem quite a bit more flexible.
Updating your cache
Usually before searching for packages to install you’ll want to update your package cache.
Debian:
apt-get update
Arch:
pacman -Sy
This will update your cache, and allow you to search for packages to install.
Searching
Often your trying to find a package to install for a particular application in this instance we’ll search for qemu.
Debian:
apt-cache search qemu
Arch:
pacman -Ss qemu
These commands are essentially equivalent but pacman will list if the package is already installed or not.
Installing
Where in Debian based distributions you would do the following to install a package.
Debian:
apt-get install qemu
Arch:
pacman -S qemu
Both the above commands will go ahead and install the package along with the dependencies required for installation.
Removing
As always you would also like to be able to remove packages should you not need them anymore.
Debian:
apt-get --purge remove qemu
Arch:
pacman -R qemu
OK so now we find out that all of the regular user things aren’t done by just -S, removing does require the use of -R
Listing
Wanting to get a list of the packages you’ve installed is a pretty common thing to do.
Debian:
dpkg -l
Arch:
pacman -Q
Listing optional dependencies
Arch:
pacman -Qi <packagname>
This will display some nice package information along with the optional dependencies available for installation.
Upgrading
If you’ve used any Debian based distribution for any length of time, you will have run a dist-upgrade at some point.
Debian:
apt-get dist-upgrade
Arch:
pacman -Syu
Each of these will update all of the required packages to get you upgraded.
Cleaning up
Want to clean up your installed packages cache?
Debian:
apt-cache clean
Arch:
paccache -r
That’s about it for my common commands, I’ll likely go over installing source / AUR packages as well in the future