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Basic commands

Install & update

Install a package. 

pacman -S <package>

Update and upgrade. They must be done at the same time. 

pacman -Syu
pacman -Syyu ## Force a repository update/sync

Uninstall

Uninstall a package. 

pacman -R <package>
pacman -Russ <package>

  • --remove -R removes packages, keeps config files appending ".pacsave"
  • --nosave -n deletes config files.
  • --unneeded -u removes unneeded dependencies.
  • --recursive -s remove all of the dependencies that are not required by other packages and they were not explicitly installed. Twice to include explicitly installed.

Search for a package. 

pacman -Ss <package>

Query

List packages 

pacman -Q

List packages installed from repositories 

pacman -Qn

List packages not installed from repositories 

pacman -Qm

List orphaned packages 

pacman -Qdt

List explicitly installed packages 

pacman -Qe
pacman -Qet

List all files installed by a package 

pacman -Ql

Remove packages that are no longer installed from the cache as well as currently unused sync databases to free up disk space. 

pacman -Sc

Clean

Clean all cached versions of installed and uninstalled packages up to the last 3 versions (pacman-contrib) 

paccache -r

Clean up to one past version (pacman-contrib) 

paccache -rk1

Clean all the uninstalled packages from cache (pacman-contrib) 

paccache -ruk0

Uninstall orphaned packages 

sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qqdt)

Add a package as explictly installed so is not considered an orphan. 

pacman -D --asexplicit <pkgs>

Query files

Search which packages installed a file 

pacman -F /path/to/file

Search for a package that will install a program 

pacman -Fy # Update the cache
pacman -Fq htpasswd

Downgrade

Downgrade a package from the ones in the local cache. 

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/package-old_version.pkg.tar.xz

Downgrade a package with downgrade (AUR) 

downgrade <package name>

Other

Reinstall all packages 

pacman --force -S "$(pacman -Qqen)"

Receive keys. Keys can be found in the signature of a package, it redirects to a key server with the ID of the key. 

sudo pacman-key --recv-keys 0x7A4E76095D8A52E4

/etc/pacman.conf

VerbosePkgLists

Before 

:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (10) acpi_call-lts-1.1.0-90  dnssec-anchors-20190629-1  lib32-libdrm-2.4.99-1  libdrm-2.4.99-1  linux-lts-4.19.57-1
              linux-lts-headers-4.19.57-1  mpc-0.32-1  mpd-0.21.11-1  tzdata-2019b-1  yubikey-personalization-1.20.0-1

Total Download Size:    84.96 MiB
Total Installed Size:  195.92 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       -0.07 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] ^C
Interrupt signal received

After 

:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (10)                       Old Version  New Version  Net Change  Download Size

community/acpi_call-lts            1.1.0-89     1.1.0-90       0.00 MiB       0.01 MiB
core/dnssec-anchors                20181003-1   20190629-1     0.00 MiB       0.00 MiB
multilib/lib32-libdrm              2.4.98-1     2.4.99-1       0.00 MiB       0.13 MiB
extra/libdrm                       2.4.98-1     2.4.99-1       0.01 MiB       0.24 MiB
core/linux-lts                     4.19.56-1    4.19.57-1      0.00 MiB      74.87 MiB
core/linux-lts-headers             4.19.56-1    4.19.57-1      0.00 MiB       8.45 MiB
extra/mpc                          0.31-1       0.32-1        -0.03 MiB       0.17 MiB
extra/mpd                          0.21.10-1    0.21.11-1     -0.04 MiB       0.70 MiB
core/tzdata                        2019a-1      2019b-1       -0.01 MiB       0.33 MiB
community/yubikey-personalization  1.19.3-1     1.20.0-1       0.00 MiB       0.06 MiB

Total Download Size:    84.96 MiB
Total Installed Size:  195.92 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       -0.07 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]