====== Pacman ======

**Pacman** is the package management tool that comes with [[arch_linux]].

It is very important to change the progress bar to look like Pacman eating dots. You do this by editing ''/etc/pacman.conf'', adding the line 'ILoveCandy' to the ''[options] > # Misc options'' section. Make sure you have colour enabled too.

===== Usage =====

I'll leave out the basics like ''-Syu'', ''-S'', ''-Ss'' and ''-Rsn''((But hey, in case you didn't know what the ''s'' and ''n'' are doing there: ''s'' include deps. not needed by anything else, ''n'' also ditches config. files (but not the ones in your home directory))); here're some ones I don't use as much / forget, but are real useful.

''-S [group name]-{[name1],name2],[etc]}''

''-Qs''

''-Ql''

''-Qo [/path/to/file_name]''

''Q'' does stuff on installed packages, you can replace with ''F'' to do the same actions on stuff you haven't installed.

I also have an alias for my helper, so I type ''pact -[flags]'' to do stuff.

===== Tips =====

==== Maintenance ====
=== .pacnew ===

There are tools to manage ''.pacnew'' files that are created when core config files are updated FIXME

I just use [[vim#vimdiff]] to check difference between the current and new files. You could also just use ''vim -d [file] [file]''. ''Ctrl+w [left or right arrow]'' to switch window, btw.

You can get a nice list of ''.pacnew''s with ''find /etc -regextype posix-extended -regex ".+\.pac(new|save)" 2> /dev/null''

=== Freeing Space ===

To clear Pacman's cache ''pacman -Sc''.

You can use Paccache (in [[arch>community/x86_64/pacman-contrib/pacman-contrib/|pacman-contrib]]) to have better control over what you do with cached packages. Egs.: ''paccache -rk 2'' will delete everything except the last two versions of a package. ''paccache -ruk0'' will remove everything for packages that are no longer installed.

To find orphan packages ''pacman -Qdt''

==== Converting Packages ====
=== DEB ===
== Debtap ==
Can convert a .deb package into a PKGBUILD with one tool. Real simple to use.

Usage:
  - ''# debtap -u'' when you first run it to get the database up to date
  - ''$ debtap -p [deb file]'' to make the PKGBUILD

  * [[github>helixarch/debtap]]
  * [[aur>debtap]]

== deb2targz ==
  * [[aur>deb2targz]]

=== RPM ===

==== Speeding Up Package Building ====
  * [[archw>Makepkg]]
    * [[archw>Makepkg#Improving_compile_times]]
    * [[archw>Makepkg#Utilizing_multiple_cores_on_compression]]

===== Fixes =====

==== Keys ====

If you get errors about keys (and things like files being corrupt), try updating ''archlinux-keyring'' before doing a full update. EG: (''sudo pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring && sudo pacman -Su''. You might want to chuck that in an alias.

nbjp [[https://monthly-reports.archlinux.page/2022/07/|Apparently Arch now updates the keyring weekly]].

==== AUR ====
=== .SRCINFO and PKGBUILD mismatch ===

Errors like

  :: [package name] package(s) failed to install.
  :: ensure package version does not mismatch between .SRCINFO and PKGBUILD
  :: ensure package name has a VCS suffix if this is a devel package

Are a [[pacaur]] problem, and can get gotten round by installing manually, or by using another helper

[[trizen]] and [[yay]] seem to be the helpers to go for now.

==== Missing Files in Pacman Database ====

Just ran into a little problem where a disk error took out a bit of my pacman database.

This was giving me an error about a ''desc'' file every time I ran pacman, and blocking some parts of the process. using ''--force'' to reinstall the package didn't help, and I also was unable to remove it.

Thanks to [[https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1724969#p1724969|this post]] I solved it by deleting the packages directory in ''/var/lib/pacman/local'', and reinstalled the database only with ''pacman -U --dbonly [package].pkg.tar.xz''

==== Broken Pacman After Partial Upgrade ====

When doing a partial upgrade to get my keyring in order before a proper upgrade I mistakenly upgraded pacman too. This ca'us an error where the version of glibc that pacman needed was out of whack with the one I had installed, so pacman would not work at all.

To fix this I downloaded a //static// version of pacman and ran a fresh ''# pacman -Syu'' and that fixed everything.

See: https://old.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/lz7777/pacman_broken_due_to_glibc/

===== See Also =====

  * [[arch_linux]]

{{tag>fixes linux software package-manager}}