Pacman Cheat Sheet

Pacman looks terse but it’s just verbs + flags. Here’s the working set.

Daily drivers

sudo pacman -Syu            # update EVERYTHING (do this first, always)
sudo pacman -S firefox      # install a package
sudo pacman -Rns firefox    # remove package + deps + config
sudo pacman -Ss video edit  # search by keyword in name/description
pacman -Qs video            # search what YOU have installed
pacman -Qi firefox          # info about an installed package

Fixing things

sudo pacman -Syyu           # force-refresh all databases + upgrade
sudo pacman -S linux        # reinstall a specific package over a bad copy
pacman -Ql firefox          # list every file a package owns
pacman -Qo /usr/bin/xyz     # which package owns this file?
pacman -Qdt                 # orphaned dependencies nobody needs
sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qdtq)   # remove all orphans
sudo pacman -Sc             # clear old cached packages (see note)
-Sc keeps the newest version of each cached package. For smarter trimming use paccache -rk1 (keep 1) or read Freeing Disk Space.

Reading output

  • [installed] in search results = already on your system.

  • Optional deps are listed as suggestions — install only if you want the feature.

  • Groups like gnome install many packages at once; pacman asks before proceeding.

Downgrading after a bad update

Cached copies make rollback easy:

ls /var/cache/pacman/pkg | grep firefox
sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/firefox-<version>.pkg.tar.zst

Better yet, snapshot before updating — Timeshift restores the whole system, packages included.