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+  <title>A quick overview of usage of the Pacman package manager — Luke T. Shumaker</title>
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+  <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="./index.atom" name="web log entries"/>
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+<header><a href="/">Luke T. Shumaker</a> » <a href=/blog>blog</a> » pacman-overview</header>
+<article>
+<h1 id="a-quick-overview-of-usage-of-the-pacman-package-manager">A quick
+overview of usage of the Pacman package manager</h1>
+<p>This was originally published on <a
+href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5101416">Hacker News</a> on
+2013-01-23.</p>
+<p>Note: I’ve over-done quotation marks to make it clear when precise
+wording matters.</p>
+<p><code>pacman</code> is a little awkward, but I prefer it to apt/dpkg,
+which have sub-commands, each with their own flags, some of which are
+undocumented. pacman, on the other hand, has ALL options documented in
+one fairly short man page.</p>
+<p>The trick to understanding pacman is to understand how it maintains
+databases of packages, and what it means to “sync”.</p>
+<p>There are several “databases” that pacman deals with:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>“the database”, (<code>/var/lib/pacman/local/</code>)<br> The
+database of currently installed packages</li>
+<li>“package databases”,
+(<code>/var/lib/pacman/sync/${repo}.db</code>)<br> There is one of these
+for each repository. It is a file that is fetched over plain http(s)
+from the server; it is not modified locally, only updated.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>The “operation” of pacman is set with a capital flag, one of “DQRSTU”
+(plus <code>-V</code> and <code>-h</code> for version and help). Of
+these, “DTU” are “low-level” (analogous to dpkg) and “QRS” are
+“high-level” (analogous to apt).</p>
+<p>To give a brief explanation of cover the “high-level” operations, and
+which databases they deal with:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>“Q” Queries “the database” of locally installed packages.</li>
+<li>“S” deals with “package databases”, and Syncing “the database” with
+them; meaning it installs/updates packages that are in package
+databases, but not installed on the local system.</li>
+<li>“R” Removes packages “the database”; removing them from the local
+system.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>The biggest “gotcha” is that “S” deals with all operations with
+“package databases”, not just syncing “the database” with them.</p>
+
+</article>
+<footer>
+  <aside class="sponsor"><p>I'd love it if you <a class="em"
+      href="/sponsor/">sponsored me</a>.  It will allow me to continue
+      my work on the GNU/Linux ecosystem.  Thanks!</p></aside>
+
+<p>The content of this page is Copyright © 2013 <a href="mailto:lukeshu@lukeshu.com">Luke T. Shumaker</a>.</p>
+<p>This page is licensed under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA 4.0</a> license.</p>
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