Pacman and yay package management on Arch.

Install

• Single package: sudo pacman -S <pkg>

• Multiple packages: sudo pacman -S firefox chromium vlc

• Skip already up-to-date: sudo pacman -S --needed <pkg>

• No confirmation: sudo pacman -S --noconfirm <pkg>

• From a local .pkg.tar.zst: sudo pacman -U /path/to/package.pkg.tar.zst

• From a specific repo: sudo pacman -S extra/<pkg>

Remove

• Package + deps + config (cleanest): sudo pacman -Rns <pkg>

• Package + deps (keep config): sudo pacman -Rs <pkg>

• Only the package: sudo pacman -R <pkg>

• Orphans (installed as deps, no longer needed): sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qdtq)

• List orphans without removing: pacman -Qdt

Update

• Full system upgrade: sudo pacman -Syu

• Force database refresh + upgrade: sudo pacman -Syyu

• Download only, don’t install: sudo pacman -Syuw

Warning: Never run pacman -Sy <pkg> (partial upgrade). Always full -Syu.

Search & query

• Search remote repos: pacman -Ss <keyword>

• Info on remote package: pacman -Si <pkg>

• Search installed: pacman -Qs <keyword>

• Info on installed package: pacman -Qi <pkg>

• List files in installed package: pacman -Ql <pkg>

• Which package owns file: pacman -Qo /usr/bin/vim

• Find file in remote pkg (requires pkgfile): pkgfile <filename>

List installed

For a full, committed snapshot of this machine, see the package inventory kept in the dotfiles — regenerate it any time with pkglist (see tools/pkglist).

• Explicitly installed: pacman -Qe

• Explicit, excluding base/base-devel: pacman -Qet

• Foreign (AUR / manual): pacman -Qm

• Native (official repos): pacman -Qn

• Recent installs (needs expac): expac --timefmt='%Y-%m-%d %T' '%l\t%n' | sort | tail -20

• Check broken deps: sudo pacman -Dk

Cache

• Cache size: du -sh /var/cache/pacman/pkg/

• Clean cache, keep 3 latest (needs pacman-contrib): sudo paccache -r

• Keep only latest: sudo paccache -rk1

• Remove cache for uninstalled pkgs: sudo paccache -ruk0

• Remove all cache: sudo pacman -Scc

• Downgrade from cache: sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/<pkg>-<oldver>.pkg.tar.zst

• Enable weekly cleanup timer: sudo systemctl enable --now paccache.timer

Mirrors

• Edit mirror list: sudo $EDITOR /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

• Best 10 HTTPS mirrors with reflector:

  sudo reflector --country France,Germany --age 12 --protocol https \
      --sort rate --latest 10 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
  

• Auto mirror updates: sudo systemctl enable --now reflector.timer

Configuration

• Main file: /etc/pacman.conf

• Common tweaks:

  Color
  ILoveCandy
  ParallelDownloads = 5
  
  [multilib]
  Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
  

• Ignore package on upgrade (in pacman.conf): IgnorePkg = linux linux-headers

yay (AUR)

• Bootstrap (first time):

  sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel
  git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
  cd yay && makepkg -si
  

• Search AUR + repos: yay <keyword>

• Install from AUR: yay -S <pkg>

• Update everything (repos + AUR): yay -Syu

• AUR-only update: yay -Sua

• Remove leftover build deps: yay -Yc

• Edit PKGBUILD before build: yay -S --editmenu <pkg>

• Skip check phase: yay -S <pkg> --mflags=--nocheck

Manual AUR install

• Clone, review, build:

  git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/<pkg>.git
  cd <pkg>
  less PKGBUILD
  makepkg -si
  

Troubleshooting

• Lock left over (only when no pacman running): sudo rm /var/lib/pacman/db.lck

• Re-sync corrupted DB: sudo pacman -Syy

• Fix PGP signature errors:

  sudo pacman -S archlinux-keyring
  sudo pacman-key --init
  sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
  

• Reinstall all native packages: sudo pacman -S $(pacman -Qnq)

• Verify package files: pacman -Qkk

• Force overwrite conflicts: sudo pacman -S --overwrite '*' <pkg>

• Recent upgrades from log: grep -i upgraded /var/log/pacman.log | tail -20

Useful aliases

alias pacup='sudo pacman -Syu'
alias pacin='sudo pacman -S'
alias pacrm='sudo pacman -Rns'
alias pacss='pacman -Ss'
alias pacqs='pacman -Qs'
alias pacown='pacman -Qo'
alias pacorph='sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qdtq)'
alias paclog='grep -i "installed\|upgraded\|removed" /var/log/pacman.log | tail -30'

Useful installed packages (reference)