Software & Apps Linux 62 62 people found this article helpful A Guide to Using the Pacman Package Manager Install and Manage Packages on Arch Linux and Manjaro by Gary Newell Writer Gary Newell was a freelance contributor, application developer, and software tester with 20+ years in IT, working on Linux, UNIX, and Windows. our editorial process Gary Newell Updated on July 21, 2020 Linux Switching from Windows Tweet Share Email In previous articles, we have shown you how to install applications on Debian based Linux distributions using apt-get and we have also shown you how to install applications on Red Hat based Linux distributions using yum. In this guide, we will show you how to install packages using the command line within Arch-based Linux distributions such as Manjaro. Bandai Namco Which Applications Are Installed on Your Computer You can view a list of all the packages installed on your system using the following command: pacman -Q This will return a list of all the applications on your computer and their version numbers. Viewing the Change Log for an Installed Application You can retrieve more information about a package or indeed packages by supplying various query options as follows: pacman -Qc firefox View Packages Installed As Dependencies for Other Packages The previous command will show you the changelog for Firefox if it exists. If it doesn't exist a message will be displayed telling you that no changelog is available. pacman -Qd The above command shows you all the files that are installed as dependencies to other packages. This will show you all the orphaned dependencies installed on your computer. pacman -Qdt View Explicitly Installed Packages If you want to see all of the explicitly installed packages use the following command: pacman -Qe An explicit package is one that you actually chose to install as opposed to a package that was installed as a dependency to other packages. You can see which explicit packages have no dependencies by using the following command: pacman -Qet View All the Packages in a Group To see which groups installed packages belong to you can use the following command: pacman -Si <package name> | grep -i groups This will list all of the groups that a package belongs to. If you want to see all the packages in a particular group you can specify the group name: pacman -Sg xfce4 Return Information About Installed Packages If you want to know the name, description and all other manner of details about a package use the following command: pacman -Qi firefox The output includes: nameversiondescriptionarchitectureURL to package's websiteLicenseGroupsProvidesDepends OnOptional DepsRequired ByOptional ForConflicts WithReplacesInstalled SizeName Of PackagerBuild DateInstall DateInstall ReasonInstall ScriptValidated Find All Files Owned by a Package You can find all the files that are installed by a specific package using the following command: pacman -Ql firefox This returns the package name and the path to files that it owns. You can specify multiple packages after the -l. If you want to check which files a package you haven't installed yet would install and where, run the following: pacman -Fl firefox Then, if you want to check the location of the binary executable file owned by a package, use the '-Qo flag. pacman -Qo firefox Find Packages Not Found in the Sync Databases (i.e. Installed Manually) You can find manually installed packages using the following command: pacman -Qm Packages installed using yaourt such as Google Chrome will be listed using this command. Find Packages Only Available in the Sync Databases This is the inverse to the previous command and only shows packages installed via the sync databases. pacman -Qn Find Out of Date Packages To find packages that need to be updated, use the following command: pacman -Qu This will return a list of packages, their version numbers, and the latest version numbers. How to Install a Package Using Pacman To install a package, use the following command: sudo pacman -S <package name> You may need to use the sudo command to elevate your permissions for this command to run. Alternatively, switch to a user with elevated permissions using the su command. When a package is available in multiple repositories you can choose which repository to use by specifying it in the command as follows: Installing a package with Pacman will automatically download and install any dependencies. You can also install a group of packages such as a desktop environment like XFCE. When you specify a group name the output will be along the lines of: pacman -S xfce4 Repository extra 1) exo 2) garcon 3) gtk-xfce-engine You can choose to install all the packages in the group by pressing return. Alternatively, you can install individual packages by providing a comma-separated list of numbers (i.e. 1,2,3,4,5). If you want to install all the packages between 1 and 10 you can also use a hyphen (i.e. 1-10). How to Upgrade Out of Date Packages To upgrade all of the out-of-date packages use the following command: pacman -Syu Sometimes you want to upgrade the packages but for one particular package, you want it to stay at an older version (because you know the newer version has removed a feature or is broken). So, if Firefox was causing the problem, you could use the following command for this: pacman -Syu --ignore=firefox Show a List of Available Packages You can view a list of the available packages in the sync database with the following command: pacman -Sl That will display an absolutely monstrous list, so it's better used with 'grep' to search. pacman -Sl | grep -i wine Display Information About a Package in the Sync Database You can find detailed information about a package in the sync database using the following command: pacman -Si Search for a Package in the Sync Database If you just want to search for a package in the sync database use the following command: pacman -Ss wine The results will be a list of all available packages matching the search criteria. Refresh the Sync Database You can make sure the sync database is up to date using the following command: pacman -Sy This should be used prior to running the upgrade command. It is also useful to run this if you haven't done it in a while so that when you search you are getting the latest results. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up. Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit