Pacman (package manager)

pacman

Screenshot of pacman running in a terminal
Original author(s)	Judd Vinet
Developer(s)	Several[1]
Initial release	25 February 2002
Stable release	4.1[2] / 1 April 2013 (2013-04-01)
Development status	Active
Written in	C
Operating system	GNU/Linux
Platform	ARM (v 5,6,7),[3] PPC,[4] IA-32, x86-64
Available in	English
Type	Package management system
License	GNU GPL v2[5]
Website	www.archlinux.org/pacman

pacman is a software package manager, developed as part of the Arch Linux distribution. It was created by Arch Linux creator Judd Vinet. The pacman package manager is one of the major pillars of Arch Linux.

In addition to Arch Linux, pacman is also used by Parabola, Chakra Linux,^[6] Destro, Manjaro and DeLi Linux. Frugalware uses a fork of a pacman rewrite.^[7]

Usage

Pacman is capable of resolving dependencies and automatically downloading and installing all necessary packages. In theory, a user only needs to run a single command to completely update the system.

Pacman keeps the system up to date by synchronizing package lists with the master server. This server/client model also allows users to download/install packages with a simple command, complete with all required dependencies.

Packages are downloaded via FTP or HTTP; it can also use local files, depending on how each repository is set up.

Packages and build system

Pacman packages are compressed tar archives containing metadata and a directory structure with files. Packages are built with makepkg using Bash build scripts known as PKGBUILDs.^[8] The following is a PKGBUILD for the patch package included in the pacman documentation as an example:^[9]

pkgname=patch
pkgver=2.5.4
pkgrel=3
pkgdesc="A utility to apply patch files to original sources"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
url="http://www.gnu.org/software/patch/patch.html"
license=('GPL')
groups=('base-devel')
depends=('glibc' 'ed')
source=(ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/$pkgname/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz)
md5sums=('ee5ae84d115f051d87fcaaef3b4ae782')
 
build() {
  cd "$srcdir"/$pkgname-$pkgver
  ./configure --prefix=/usr
  make
}
 
package() {
  cd "$srcdir"/$pkgname-$pkgver
  make prefix="$pkgdir"/usr install
}

libalpm

Pacman version 3.0 introduced a back-end library, libalpm, to which pacman became a front-end.^[10] PackageKit includes support for the alpm library.^[11]

Graphical front-ends

Pacman does not have an official graphical front-end. However, PackageKit front-ends can be used along with the following third party interfaces.

GUIs

• gtkpacman: A PyGTK pacman GUI. A subversion version is available as well (gtkpacman-svn). Not available in the repositories.
• wakka: Fork of gtkpacman.
• PackageKit

Update Notification Applets

• kalu: Tray notifications about news, (watched) official updates, (watched) AUR updates. Also includes a GUI for system upgrade.
• pacmon: Tray applet that notifies the user of available pacman updates.
• pacupdate: Tray notifications about new updates for Arch Linux.

See also

• List of software package management systems
• Package management

References

External links

• Pacman homepage
• Pacman in the Arch Linux Wiki
• Pacman GUI Frontends in the Arch Linux Wiki
• DistroWatch Interview Judd Vinet talks about Arch Linux and Pacman in 2003
• The real story behind Arch Linux package signing