Pamac is the package manager used in RebornOS, and created by Manjaro. In the version used by RebornOS, it has AUR and Flatpak support, and this application takes care of the installation, uninstallation, and system update tasks.
The main screen that will be displayed once this application is executed is the following:
In the upper left corner, you can access the search for pamac by clicking on the magnifying glass icon.By default, it starts on the **Browse** screen, which allows us to view all the software available in the repositories used by the distribution (which are the Arch repositories, and RebornOS 'own repository).Clicking on **Installed** above, we will see a list with all the software currently installed.By clicking **Updates** at the top, pamac will check to see if there are any updates for your system.In the **Sort by** button, pamac will display the information by: relevance, name, repository, size, or date, as selected.In the menu on the left (under the magnifying glass) it is possible to access the list of applications by category, groups, and existing repositories in the distribution.By selecting categories, you can see something similar to what the following screen shows:
Selecting groups, you can see something similar to what the following screen shows:
Selecting repositories, you can see something similar to what the following screen shows:
***By default, pamac on RebornOS comes configured with only 1 parallel download, and with AUR and Flatpak support disabled. In addition, when selecting a file to install, pamac will automatically check if there is an update, and will add it to the selected download (this can be modified). Also, check if there is an update every 6 hours.***Accessing the menu on the top right, we can access Software Mode, Refresh database, View History, Install Local Packages, Preferences, and About:
By selecting Software Mode, pamac will automatically select the existing Categories menu on the left.
Refresh databases as its name implies, updates the database of all existing repositories.
View History, opens a terminal window, showing the activities carried out by pamac.
Install Local Package, it will open a file selection window, where you can search for a package locally that you want to install.
Preferences allows you to configure different pamac options.
About indicates the version in use of pamac, and some other information related to the application.
When accessing the Preferences menu, the following screen is displayed (the user's password will be requested to access this menu):
**Check for updates** is, as its name implies, where the option for pamac to check for system updates is enabled or disabled.***Updates check frequency*** is where you can set the elapsed time between each check performed by pamac to see if there are new updates. The options are: every 3 hours, every 6 hours, every 12 hours, once a week, and once a month.***Automatically download updates*** is, as its name implies, what allows pamac to automatically download any updates that may exist.Under **Downloads**, there is ***Parallel downloads***. Is the number of parallel downloads with which pamac will be able to work. This value can be: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10.Under **Cache**, there is ***Number of versions of each package to keep***, and it is where you can set the number of versions that may exist of the same package in the cache. this value can be: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.***Remove only the uninstalled packages***, is the option that will allow pamac to remove from its cache the packages that have been removed from its system.By clicking on ***Advanced***, this other screen is accessed:
Check available disk space allows you to check if the available disk space is sufficient to carry out the operation in progress.
Remove unrequired dependencies removes the dependencies that are not used by any package.
Do not check for updates when installing prevents that when we install a package, pamac checks and installs any update that may exist, in addition to installing the package selected by the user (this operation is done without asking).
Enable downgrade enables the ability to downgrade a package.
Ignored upgrades allows us to create a list of applications that we do not want to be updated.
By clicking on Third Party, this other screen is accessed:
On this screen you can enable (or disable) AUR and Flatpak support, as desired.
The available pamac actions when executed from the terminal are the following:
pamac --versionpamac --help, -h [action]pamac search [options] <package(s)>pamac list [options] <package(s)>pamac info [options] <package(s)>pamac install [options] <package(s)>pamac reinstall [options] <package(s)>pamac remove [options] [package(s)]pamac checkupdates [options]pamac update,upgrade [options]pamac clone [options] <package(s)>pamac build [options] [package(s)]pamac clean [options]Searching Packages
To search google-chrome:
pamac search -a google-chromechromedriver-beta 89.0.4389.23-1 AURStandalone server that implements the W3C WebDriver standard (for google-chrome-beta)chromedriver 89.0.4389.23-1 AURStandalone server that implements the W3C WebDriver standard (for google-chrome)google-chrome-dev 91.0.4469.4-2 AURThe popular and trusted web browser by Google (Dev Channel)google-chrome-beta 90.0.4430.72-2 AURThe popular and trusted web browser by Google (Beta Channel)google-chrome [Installed packages] 90.0.4430.72-2 Reborn-OSThe popular and trusted web browser by Google (Stable Channel)Installing Packagespamac install <package>. In this example, google chrome is installed from terminal:
pamac install google-chromeIMPORTANT: pamac, unlike pacman, will only install those packages that are not on your system. This means that if you already have google-chrome installed, pamac will not install it again.
If you want to install some AUR, you will need to use the pamac build command. Suppose the installation of clockify-desktop:
pamac build clockify-desktopRemoving Packages
The pamac remove command is used interchangeably to remove a package from the repositories, or from the AUR. For example:
pamac remove google-chromeIMPORTANT: It is extremely important that the user knows what they are doing when they delete something. Sometimes it can happen that an attempt is made to remove a package whose function is unknown, but which is perhaps an important part of the system, and as a result, it may end with an installation that no longer works.
List all packages installed on your system
Use pamac list to list all packages installed on your system:
pacman list -iShow detailed information of a package
Use pamac info to see, for example, the detailed information of google-chrome:
pamac info google-chromeName : google-chromeVersion : 90.0.4430.72-2Description : The popular and trusted web browser by Google (Stable Channel)URL : https://www.google.com/chromeLicense : custom:chromeRepository : Reborn-OSInstalled size : 244,8MBDepends on : alsa-lib gtk3 libcups libxss libxtst nssOptional dependencies : pipewire: WebRTC desktop sharing under Wayland [Installed packages]kdialog: for file dialogs in KDEgnome-keyring: for storing passwords in GNOME keyring [Installed packages]kwallet: for storing passwords in KWalletlibunity: for download progress on KDEttf-liberation: fix fonts for some PDFs - CRBug #369991 [Installed packages] xdg-utils [Installed packages]Packer : Unknown PackagerBuilding date : 15/04/21Instalation date : 15/04/21Installation reason : Explicitly installedSigned : Yes`Updating the System
Use pamac checkupdates to check for updates:
pamac checkupdates -aUse pamac upgrade to update your system, including any AUR packages that may exist:
pamac upgrade -aNOTE: upgrade and update in pamac are the same, and you can use them interchangeably.
Working with orphaned packages
To check for unnecessary packages (known as orphaned packages) on your system:
pamac list -oAnd to remove these packages that are no longer used:
pamac remove -oCleaning the Cache
pamac, when installing new packages on your system, stores a copy of the files to be replaced, in a place known as cache memory. The number of copies stored here can be configured (see above, in pamac Configuration).
If you want to delete the contents of this cache:
pamac cleanThere is an option to delete all versions of existing packages in the cache memory, but leaving the three most recent copies of them:
pamac clean --keep 3Other Useful Pamac Functions
To find out if a certain file is owned by an application, you can use:
pamac search -f unrarTo force reinstall a package that already exists on your system:
pamac reinstall google-chrome
