ArchWiki / Pacman/Tips and tricks
ArchWiki / Pacman/Tips and tricks
de:Pacman-Tipps es:Pacman (Español)/Tips and tricks fr:Pacman (Français)/Tips and tricks hu:Pacman (Magyar)/Tips and tricks ja:Pacman ヒント pt:Pacman (Português)/Tips and tricks uk:Pacman (Українська)/Tips and tricks ru:Pacman (Русский)/Tips and tricks zh-hans:Pacman/Tips and tricks
For general methods to improve the flexibility of the provided tips or pacman itself, see Core utilities and Bash.
Maintenance
Instead of using comm (which requires sorted input with sort) in the sections below, you may also use grep -Fxf or grep -Fxvf.
See also System maintenance.
Listing packages
In unused repositories
By default, repositories listed in pacman.conf are used for syncing, searching, installing and upgrading from them. This can be changed for more versatility, for example by using some repositories only for searching in themhttp://allanmcrae.com/2014/12/pacman-4-2-released/:
...
[multilib]
Usage = Sync Search
.../etc/pacman.confSee pacman.conf(5).
With version
You may want to get the list of installed packages with their version, which is useful when reporting bugs or discussing installed packages.
List all explicitly installed packages:
pacman -QeList all packages in the package group named
group:pacman -Sg groupList all foreign packages (typically manually downloaded and installed or packages removed from the repositories):
pacman -QmList all native packages (installed from the sync database):
pacman -QnList all explicitly installed native packages (i.e. present in the sync database) that are not direct or optional dependencies:
pacman -QentList packages by regex:
pacman -Qs regexList packages by regex with custom output format (needs expac):
expac -s "%-30n %v" regex
With size
Figuring out which packages are largest can be useful when trying to free space on your hard drive. There are two options here: get the size of individual packages, or get the size of packages and their dependencies.
Individual packages
The following command will list all installed packages and their individual sizes:
$ LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 pacman -Qi | awk '/^Name/{name=$3} /^Installed Size/{print $4$5, name}' | LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 sort -hPackages and dependencies
To list package sizes with their dependencies,
To list the download size of several packages (leave packages blank to list all packages):
$ expac -S -H M '%k\t%n' packagesTo list explicitly installed packages not in the meta package base nor package group xorg with size and description:
$ expac -H M "%011m\t%-20n\t%10d" $(comm -23 <(pacman -Qqen | sort) <({ pacman -Qqg xorg; expac -l '\n' '%E' base; } | sort -u)) | sort -nTo list the packages marked for upgrade with their download size:
$ expac -S -H M '%k\t%n' $(pacman -Qqu) | sort -shTo list optional dependencies only:
$ expac -S "%o" packageBy date
To list the 20 last installed packages with expac, run:
$ expac --timefmt='%Y-%m-%d %T' '%l\t%n' | sort | tail -n 20or, with seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 UTC):
$ expac --timefmt=%s '%l\t%n' | sort -n | tail -n 20Not in a specified group, repository or meta package
To get a list of packages installed as dependencies but no longer required by any installed package, see #Removing unused packages (orphans).
List explicitly installed packages not in the base meta package:
$ comm -23 <(pacman -Qqe | sort) <(expac -l '\n' '%E' base | sort)List explicitly installed packages not in the base meta package or xorg package group:
$ comm -23 <(pacman -Qqe | sort) <({ pacman -Qqg xorg; expac -l '\n' '%E' base; } | sort -u)List all installed packages unrequired by other packages, and which are not in the base meta package or xorg package group:
$ comm -23 <(pacman -Qqt | sort) <({ pacman -Qqg xorg; echo base; } | sort -u)As above, but with descriptions:
$ expac -H M '%-20n\t%10d' $(comm -23 <(pacman -Qqt | sort) <({ pacman -Qqg xorg; echo base; } | sort -u))List all installed packages that are not in the specified repository repo_name (multiple repositories can be checked at once):
$ comm -23 <(pacman -Qq | sort) <(pacman -Sql repo_name | sort)List all installed packages that are in the repo_name repository (multiple repositories can be checked at once):
$ comm -12 <(pacman -Qq | sort) <(pacman -Sql repo_name | sort)List all packages on the Arch Linux ISO that are not in the base meta package:
$ comm -23 <(curl https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/raw/master/configs/releng/packages.x86_64) <(expac -l '\n' '%E' base | sort)Alternatively, use combine (instead of comm) from the moreutils package which has a syntax that is easier to remember. See combine(1).
Development packages
To list all development/unstable packages, run:
$ pacman -Qq | grep -Ee '-(bzr|cvs|darcs|git|hg|svn)$'Dependencies of a package
To obtain the list of the dependencies of a package, the simplest solution is reading the output of:
$ pacman -Qi packageFor automation, instead of the error-prone method of parsing pacman output, use expac:
$ expac -S '%D' packageWith optional dependencies
To list explicitly-installed packages with their optional dependencies, run:
$ LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 pacman -Qei | sed '/^[^NO ]/d;/None$/d' | awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n";FS=OFS="\n\\S"} /Optional Deps/ {print $1"\nO"$2}'Alternatively, with expac:
$ expac -d '\n\n' -l '\n\t' -Q '%n\n\t%O' $(pacman -Qeq)To list them while omitting optional dependencies you have already installed, run:
$ LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 pacman -Qei | sed '/^[^NO ]/d;/None$/d' | awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n";FS=OFS="\n\\S"} /Optional Deps/ {print $1"\nO"$2}' | sed 's/^Optional Deps ://;/\[installed\]$/d;s/\s\+/ /'Browsing packages
To browse all installed packages with an instant preview of each package:
$ pacman -Qq | fzf --preview 'pacman -Qil {}' --layout=reverse --bind 'enter:execute(pacman -Qil {} | less)'This uses fzf to present a two-pane view listing all packages with package info shown on the right.
Enter letters to filter the list of packages; use arrow keys (or Ctrl-j/Ctrl-k) to navigate; press Enter to see package info under less.
To browse all packages currently known to pacman (both installed and not yet installed) in a similar way, using fzf, use:
$ pacman -Slq | fzf --preview 'pacman -Si {}' --layout=reverseThe navigational keybindings are the same, although Enter will not work in the same way.
Listing files owned by a package with size
This one might come in handy if you have found that a specific package uses a huge amount of space and you want to find out which files make up the most of that.
$ pacman -Qlq package | grep -v '/$' | xargs -r du -h | sort -hIdentify files not owned by any package
If your system has stray files not owned by any package (a common case if you do not use the package manager to install software), you may want to find such files in order to clean them up.
One method is to list all files of interest and check them against pacman:
# (export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8; comm -13 <(pacman -Qlq | sed 's,/$,,' | sort) <(find /etc /usr /opt -path /usr/lib/modules -prune -o -print | sort))The lostfiles script performs similar steps, but also includes an extensive blacklist to remove common false positives from the output.
Tracking unowned files created by packages
Most systems will slowly collect several ghost files such as state files, logs, indexes, etc. through the course of usual operation.
pacreport from pacutils can be used to track these files and their associations via /etc/pacreport.conf (see pacreport(1)).
An example may look something like this (abridged):
[Options]
IgnoreUnowned = usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache
[PkgIgnoreUnowned]
alsa-utils = var/lib/alsa/asound.state
bluez = var/lib/bluetooth
ca-certificates = etc/ca-certificates/trust-source/*
dbus = var/lib/dbus/machine-id
glibc = etc/ld.so.cache
grub = boot/grub/*
linux = boot/initramfs-linux.img
pacman = var/lib/pacman/local
update-mime-database = usr/share/mime/magic/etc/pacreport.confThen, when using pacreport --unowned-files as the root user, any unowned files will be listed if the associated package is no longer installed (or if any new files have been created).
Additionally, aconfmgr (aconfmgr-git) allows tracking modified and orphaned files using a configuration script.
Removing unused packages (orphans)
Orphans are packages that were installed as a dependency and are no longer required by any package.
They can accumulate on your system over time either due to uninstalling packages using pacman -R package instead of pacman -Rs package, installing packages as makedepends, or packages removing dependencies in newer versions.
For recursively removing orphans and their configuration files:
# pacman -Qdtq | pacman -Rns -If no orphans were found, the output is error: argument '-' specified with empty stdin. This is expected as no arguments were passed to pacman -Rns. The error can be avoided by prefixing the second command with ifne(1) from the moreutils package.
If there is a package listed that you do not want to remove, it can be excluded from the list of orphans by marking it as explicitly installed:
# pacman -D --asexplicit packageThe arguments -Qdt list only true orphans. To include packages which are optionally required by another package, pass the -t flag twice (i.e., -Qdtt).
The command pacman -Qdtq | pacman -Rns - may remove packages that are optional dependencies of packages that are not being removed. To avoid this, do not include the -s flag (i.e., run pacman -Qdtq | pacman -Rn -). However, without -s, the command will not remove dependencies of the orphans you are removing, so it must be run several times or within a loop to remove new orphans that result from the initial removals.
Add the pacman -Qdt command to a pacman post-transaction hook to be notified if a transaction orphaned a package. This can be useful for being notified when a package has been dropped from a repository, since any dropped package will also be orphaned on a local installation (unless it was explicitly installed). To avoid any failed to execute command errors when no orphans are found, use the following command for Exec in your hook: /usr/bin/bash -c "/usr/bin/pacman -Qdt || /usr/bin/echo '=> None found.'" The package pacman-log-orphans-hook provides such hook with a more verbose instructions.
Detecting more unneeded packages
In some cases the method above will not detect all possible unneeded packages. E.g. dependency cycles (also known as "circular dependencies"), excessive dependencies (fulfilled more than once), some non-explicit optionals etc.
To detect such packages:
$ pacman -Qqd | pacman -Rsu --print -If you want to remove all packages in the list at once, run the command without --print argument.
Sometimes there may be multiple packages providing the same item. For example, there may be multiple packages which provide ttf-font. You may not want all such packages depending on your preference.
To detect packages which provide same item:
$ awk '/%(NAME|PROVIDES)%/{flag=1;next}/^$/{flag=0}flag{ printf "%s\t%s\n", FILENAME, $0}' /var/lib/pacman/local/*/desc | sed 's%/var/lib/pacman/local/\(.*\)/desc%\1%g' | sort -k2 | uniq -Df1 | column -etN Package,ProvidesCheck the output and carefully remove redundant package which you do not require.
Removing everything but essential packages
If it is ever necessary to remove all packages except the essentials packages, one method is to set the installation reason of the non-essential ones as dependency and then remove all unnecessary dependencies.
First, for all the packages "explicitly installed", change their installation reason to "installed as a dependency":
# pacman -D --asdeps $(pacman -Qqe)Then, change the installation reason to "explicitly installed" of only the essential packages, those you do not want to remove, in order to avoid targeting them:
# pacman -D --asexplicit base linux linux-firmware* Additional packages can be added to the above command in order to avoid being removed. See Installation guide#Install essential packages for more info on other packages that may be necessary for a fully functional base system. * This will also select the boot loader package for removal. The system should still be bootable, but the boot parameters might not be changeable without it.
Finally, follow the instructions in #Removing unused packages (orphans) to remove all packages that are "installed as a dependency".
Getting the dependencies list of several packages
Dependencies are alphabetically sorted and doubles are removed.
To only show the tree of local installed packages, use pacman -Qi.
$ LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 pacman -Si packages | awk -F'[:<=>]' '/^Depends/ {print $2}' | xargs -n1 | sort -uAlternatively, with expac:
$ expac -l '\n' %E -S packages | sort -uListing changed backup files
To list configuration files tracked by pacman as susceptible of containing user changes (i.e. files listed in the PKGBUILD backup array) and having received user modifications, use the following command:
# pacman -Qii | awk '/\[modified\]/ {print $(NF - 1)}'Running this command with root permissions will ensure that files readable only by root (such as /etc/sudoers) are included in the output.
This can be used when doing a selective system backup or when trying to replicate a system configuration from one machine to another.
* See #Listing all changed files from packages to list all changed files pacman knows about, not only backup files. * See #Identify files not owned by any package to list all files in the system that are not tracked by pacman.
Back up the pacman database
The following command can be used to back up the local pacman database:
$ tar -cjf pacman_database.tar.bz2 /var/lib/pacman/localStore the backup pacman database file on one or more offline media, such as a USB stick, external hard drive, or CD-R.
The database can be restored by moving the pacman_database.tar.bz2 file into the / directory and executing the following command:
# tar -xjvf pacman_database.tar.bz2If the pacman database files are corrupted, and there is no backup file available, there exists some hope of rebuilding the pacman database. Consult #Restore pacman's local database.
The pakbak-git package provides a script and a systemd service to automate the task. Configuration is possible in /etc/pakbak.conf.
Check changelogs easily
When maintainers update packages, commits are often commented in a useful fashion. Users can quickly check these from the command line by installing pacolog. This utility lists recent commit messages for packages from the official repositories or the AUR, by using pacolog package.
Installation and recovery
Alternative ways of getting and restoring packages.
Installing packages from a CD/DVD or USB stick
To download packages, or groups of packages:
# cd ~/Packages
# pacman -Syw --cachedir "$PWD" base base-devel grub-bios xorg gimp
# repo-add ./custom.db.tar.zst ./*.pkg.tar.zstPacman, which will reference the host installation by default, will not properly resolve and download existing dependencies. In cases where all packages and dependencies are wanted, it is recommended to create a temporary blank DB and reference it with --dbpath:
# mkdir /tmp/blankdb
# pacman -Syw --cachedir "$PWD" --dbpath /tmp/blankdb base base-devel grub-bios xorg gimp
# repo-add ./custom.db.tar.zst ./*.pkg.tar.zstThen you can burn the "Packages" directory to an optical disc (e.g. CD, DVD) or transfer it to a USB flash drive, external HDD, etc.
To install:
1. Mount the media:
For an optical disc drive:
# mount --mkdir /dev/sr0 /mnt/repoFor a USB flash drive, hard disk drive, etc.:
# mount --mkdir /dev/sdxY /mnt/repo2. Edit pacman.conf and add this repository before the other ones (e.g. extra, core, etc.). This is important. Do not just uncomment the one on the bottom. This way it ensures that the files from the CD/DVD/USB take precedence over those in the standard repositories:
[custom]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server = file:///mnt/repo/Packages/etc/pacman.conf3. Finally, synchronize the pacman database to be able to use the new repository:
# pacman -SyuCustom local repository
Use the repo-add script included with pacman to generate a database for a personal repository. Use repo-add --help for more details on its usage.
A package database is a tar file, optionally compressed. Valid extensions are .db or .files followed by an archive extension of .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.zst, or .tar.Z. The file does not need to exist, but all parent directories must exist.
To add a new package to the database, or to replace the old version of an existing package in the database, run:
$ repo-add /path/to/repo.db.tar.zst /path/to/package-1.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zstThe database and the packages do not need to be in the same directory when using repo-add, but keep in mind that when using pacman with that database, they should be together. Storing all the built packages to be included in the repository in one directory also allows to use shell glob expansion to add or update multiple packages at once:
$ repo-add /path/to/repo.db.tar.zst /path/to/*.pkg.tar.zstrepo-add adds the entries into the database in the same order as passed on the command line. If multiple versions of the same package are involved, care must be taken to ensure that the correct version is added last. In particular, note that lexical order used by the shell depends on the locale and differs from the vercmp(8) ordering used by pacman.
If you are looking to support multiple architectures, then precautions should be taken to prevent errors from occurring. Each architecture should have its own directory tree:
/home/archie/customrepo/
└── arch
├── customrepo.db -> customrepo.db.tar.zst
├── customrepo.db.tar.zst
├── customrepo.files -> customrepo.files.tar.zst
├── customrepo.files.tar.zst
└── personal-website-git-b99cce0-1-arch.pkg.tar.zst
1 directory, 5 files$ tree ~/customrepo/ sed "s/$(uname -m)/arch/g"The repo-add executable checks whether the package is appropriate. If this is not the case, you will be running into error messages similar to this:
==> ERROR: '/home/archie/customrepo/arch/foo-arch.pkg.tar.zst' does not have a valid database archive extension.repo-remove is used to remove packages from the package database, except that only package names are specified on the command line.
$ repo-remove /path/to/repo.db.tar.zst pkgnameOnce the local repository database has been created, add the repository to /etc/pacman.conf of each system that is to use the repository. An example of a custom repository is in /etc/pacman.conf. The repository's name is the database filename with the file extension omitted. In the example above the repository's name simply is repo. Reference the repository's location using a file:// URL, or via HTTP using http://localhost/path/to/directory.
If willing, add the custom repository to the list of unofficial user repositories, so that the community can benefit from it.
Network shared pacman cache
See Package proxy cache.
Recreate a package from the file system
To recreate a package from the file system, use fakepkg. Files from the system are taken as they are, hence any modifications will be present in the assembled package. Distributing the recreated package is therefore discouraged; see ABS and Arch Linux Archive for alternatives.
List of installed packages
Keeping a list of all explicitly installed packages can be useful to backup a system or quicken the installation of a new one:
$ pacman -Qqe > pkglist.txt* With option -t, the packages already required by other explicitly installed packages are not mentioned. If reinstalling from this list they will be installed but as dependencies only.
* With option -n, foreign packages (e.g. from AUR) would be omitted from the list.
* Use comm -13 <(pacman -Qqdt sort) <(pacman -Qqdtt sort) > optdeplist.txt to also create a list of the installed optional dependencies which can be reinstalled with --asdeps.
* Use pacman -Qqem > foreignpkglist.txt to create the list of AUR and other foreign packages that have been explicitly installed.
To keep an up-to-date list of explicitly installed packages (e.g. in combination with a versioned /etc/), you can set up a hook. Example:
[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Remove
Type = Package
Target = *
[Action]
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/pacman -Qqe > /etc/pkglist.txt'Install packages from a list
To install packages from a previously saved list of packages, while not reinstalling previously installed packages that are already up-to-date, run:
# pacman -S --needed - < pkglist.txtHowever, it is likely foreign packages such as from the AUR or installed locally are present in the list. To filter out from the list the foreign packages, the previous command line can be enriched as follows:
# pacman -S --needed $(comm -12 <(pacman -Slq | sort) <(sort pkglist.txt))Eventually, to make sure the installed packages of your system match the list and remove all the packages that are not mentioned in it:
# pacman -Rsu $(comm -23 <(pacman -Qq | sort) <(sort pkglist.txt))Listing all changed files from packages
If you are suspecting file corruption (e.g. by software/hardware failure), but are unsure if files were corrupted, you might want to compare with the hash sums in the packages. This can be done with pacutils:
# paccheck --sha256sum --quietFor recovery of the database see #Restore pacman's local database. The mtree files can also be extracted as .MTREE from the respective package files.
This should not be used as is when suspecting malicious changes! In this case security precautions such as using a live medium and an independent source for the hash sums are advised.
Reinstalling all packages
To reinstall all native packages, use:
# pacman -Qqn | pacman -S -Foreign (AUR) packages must be reinstalled separately; you can list them with pacman -Qqm.
Pacman preserves the installation reason by default.
To force all packages to be overwritten, use --overwrite=*, though this should be an absolute last resort. See System maintenance#Avoid certain pacman commands.
Restore pacman's local database
See pacman/Restore local database.
Recovering broken install from existing install
If you have managed to mess up an Arch install with broken packages, it is possible to re-install all the packages and hopefully get it back up and working again (assuming the root of the broken install is mounted in /brokenArch)
# pacman -S $(pacman -Qq --dbpath /brokenArch/var/lib/pacman) --root /brokenArch --dbpath /brokenArch/var/lib/pacmanViewing files inside remote .pkg files
paccat is a small utility that finds which package contains a given file, downloads it and then prints the contents. This can be used to read specific files, restore changed files back to their initial state, and extract files without installing the package.
For example, if you want to see the contents of /etc/systemd/logind.conf supplied within the systemd package:
$ paccat systemd etc/systemd/logind.confOr if you want to see the contents of archive.h supplied by any package:
$ paccat -F archive.hbsdtar can also be used to show the contents:
$ bsdtar -xOf /var/cache/pacman/pkg/systemd-250.4-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst etc/systemd/logind.confOr you can use vim to browse the archive:
$ vim /var/cache/pacman/pkg/systemd-250.4-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zstFind applications that use libraries from older packages
Already running processes do not automatically notice changes caused by updates. Instead, they continue using old library versions. That may be undesirable, due to potential issues related to security vulnerabilities or other bugs, and version incompatibility.
Processes depending on updated libraries may be found using either htop, which highlights the names of the affected programs, or with a snippet based on lsof, which also prints the names of the libraries:
# lsof +c 0 | grep -w DEL | awk '1 { print $1 ": " $NF }' | sort -uThis solution will only detect files, that are normally kept opened by running processes, which basically limits it to shared libraries (.so files). It may miss some dependencies, like those of Java or Python applications.
Installing only content in required languages
Many packages install documentation and translations in several languages. Some programs are designed to remove such unnecessary files, such as localepurge, which runs after a package is installed to delete the unneeded locale files. A more preemptive approach is provided through the NoExtract directive in /etc/pacman.conf, which prevent these files from ever being installed.
As explained in Pacman#Skip files from being installed to system, "later rules override previous ones, and you can negate a rule by prepending !".
To prevent the installation of all translations for help files, except for the C locale, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/help/* !usr/share/help/C/*To prevent the installation of all the HTML documentation, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/gtk-doc/html/*
NoExtract = usr/share/doc/HTML/*Some users noted that removing all locales has resulted in unintended consequences with dmenu, Steam, even under Xorg. The following example is adjusted to avoid such issues, by installing only English (US) files and the required C locales.
To prevent the installation of the various locales, except the required ones, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/locale/* usr/share/X11/locale/*/* usr/share/i18n/locales/* opt/google/chrome/locales/* !usr/share/X11/locale/C/* !usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/*
NoExtract = !usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir !usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/*
NoExtract = !*locale*/en*/* !usr/share/*locale*/locale.*
NoExtract = !usr/share/*locales/en_?? !usr/share/*locales/i18n* !usr/share/*locales/iso*
NoExtract = usr/share/i18n/charmaps/* !usr/share/i18n/charmaps/UTF-8.gz !usr/share/i18n/charmaps/ANSI_X3.4-1968.gz
NoExtract = !usr/share/*locales/trans*
NoExtract = !usr/share/*locales/C !usr/share/*locales/POSIXTo prevent the installation of the translated man pages, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/man/* !usr/share/man/man*To prevent the installation of the language files in vim-runtime, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/vim/vim*/lang/*To prevent the installation of all but English content in Qt applications, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/*/translations/*.qm !usr/share/*/translations/*en.qm usr/share/*/nls/*.qm usr/share/qt/phrasebooks/*.qph usr/share/qt/translations/*.pak !*/en-US.pakTo prevent the installation of all but English content in Chromium and Electron applications, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/*/locales/*.pak opt/*/locales/*.pak usr/lib/*/locales/*.pak !*/en-US.pakTo prevent the installation of English help files in LibreOffice, add:
NoExtract = usr/lib/libreoffice/help/en-US/*To prevent the installation of all but English content from OnlyOffice, add:
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/dictionaries/* !opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/dictionaries/en_US/*
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/web-apps/apps/*/main/locale/* !*/en.json
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/web-apps/apps/*/main/resources/help/*/* !*/help/en/*
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/web-apps/apps/*/main/resources/symboltable/* !*/en.json
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/web-apps/apps/documenteditor/forms/locale/* !*/en.json
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/editors/web-apps/apps/spreadsheeteditor/main/resources/formula-lang/* !*/en.json !*/en_desc.json
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/converter/empty/*/* !opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/converter/empty/en-US/*
NoExtract = opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/converter/templates/*/* !opt/onlyoffice/desktopeditors/converter/templates/EN/*To prevent the installation of all but the English iBus dictionary for emojis, add:
NoExtract = usr/share/ibus/dicts/emoji-*.dict !usr/share/ibus/dicts/emoji-en.dictInstalling packages on bad connection
When trying to install a package from a bad connection (e.g. a train using a cell phone), use the --disable-download-timeout option to lessen the chance of receiving errors such as:
error: failed retrieving file […] Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 10 secondsor
error: failed retrieving file […] Operation timed out after 10014 milliseconds with 0 out of 0 bytes receivedPerformance
Download speeds
When downloading packages pacman uses the mirrors in the order they are in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. The mirror which is at the top of the list by default however may not be the fastest for you. To select a faster mirror, see Mirrors.
Pacman's speed in downloading packages can also be improved by using parallel downloads, a major feature request (20056) added with pacman 6.0.0. It is enabled by default since pacman 7.0.0.
Instead of pacman's built-in file downloader, a separate application can also be used to download packages.
In all cases, make sure you have the latest pacman before doing any modifications.
# pacman -Syuwget
This is very handy if you need more powerful proxy settings than pacman's built-in capabilities.
To use wget, first install the wget package then modify /etc/pacman.conf by uncommenting the following line in the [options] section:
XferCommand = /usr/bin/wget --passive-ftp --show-progress -c -q -N %uInstead of uncommenting the wget parameters in /etc/pacman.conf, you can also modify the wget configuration file directly (the system-wide file is /etc/wgetrc, per user files are $HOME/.wgetrc).
aria2
aria2 is a lightweight download utility with support for resumable and segmented HTTP/HTTPS and FTP downloads. aria2 allows for multiple and simultaneous HTTP/HTTPS and FTP connections to an Arch mirror, which should result in an increase in download speeds for both file and package retrieval.
Install aria2, then edit /etc/pacman.conf by adding the following line to the [options] section:
XferCommand = /usr/bin/aria2c --allow-overwrite=true --continue=true --file-allocation=none --log-level=error --max-tries=2 --max-connection-per-server=2 --max-file-not-found=5 --min-split-size=5M --no-conf --remote-time=true --summary-interval=60 --timeout=5 --dir=/ --out %o %uThis alternative configuration for using pacman with aria2 tries to simplify configuration and adds more configuration options.
See aria2c(1) for used aria2c options.
-d, --dir: The directory to store the downloaded file(s) as specified by pacman.-o, --out: The output file name(s) of the downloaded file(s).%o: Variable which represents the local filename(s) as specified by pacman.%u: Variable which represents the download URL as specified by pacman.
Other applications
There are other downloading applications that you can use with pacman. Here they are, and their associated XferCommand settings:
snarf:XferCommand = /usr/bin/snarf -N %ulftp:XferCommand = /usr/bin/lftp -c pget %uaxel:XferCommand = /usr/bin/axel -n 2 -v -a -o %o %uhget:XferCommand = /usr/bin/hget %u -n 2 -skip-tls false(please read the documentation on the Github project page for more info)saldl:XferCommand = /usr/bin/saldl -c6 -l4 -s2m -o %o %u(please read the documentation on the project page for more info)
Utilities
Many of the (unsupported) AUR helpers also function as Pacman wrappers, some of which are graphical.
Graphical
PackageKit opens up system permissions by default, and is otherwise not recommended for general usage. See 50459 and 57943.