One of the reason why I use Arch Linux is for it’s package management system–pacman. A simple to use package manager, even though it does not have a GUI. Every upgrade, installation of new packages, updates is done from the console. I’ll be showing the few commands I use when installing, updating, upgrading my system.

# pacman -Syu

This simple command, syncs with the respositories and checks for updates to your system. If there are upgrades to be had, it will prompt you after synchronizing with the remote server.

# pacman -Ss name_of_package

Searches database for package with specified string in it’s title or description. This is good if you’re searching for a package you’re not sure exists in the database.

# pacman -Sy name_of_package

This command installs a package.

# pacman -Scc

Removes the cache from your system.

# pacman -Rs name_of_package

Uninstalls package and it’s dependencies.

# pacman -Qtd

Searches for orphaned packages no longer needed. After which, it asks if user would want to uninstall the packages.

These are the very few common pacman commands I use in Arch Linux. With these few commands, you can keep your system up to date.