pacman, yay, paru, nix - can i have all in gopios or arch linux

👤 SUVANKAR SARKAR • 📅 April 5, 2026 • 👁️ 44 views • 🔄 Updated April 15, 2026

linux software package manager

pacman - the default package manager for Arch linux and the disabled package manager for gopios. lets try to know what pacman is and eventually we will get to know why it is disabled on gopios. so intutive the name is package manager simply pacman.People think its only works on Arch Linux - not mandatory on linux i know it works on pacbsd, a discontinued bsd varient. so i can say pacman is powerfull and portable, so what is the issue: the issue is on “UNIX like os” so called linux (as os) and bsd varients is composed by packages. Any idea when you update all packages by “pacman -Syu” it not only updates software packages but every packages including the OS and down to the kernel, firmware, driver. for a normal computer user, or even a developer they want there applications to be updated Ex: chrome, vscode… on MAC or windows it is easy just update the software you need, the os update is handled separately. thus i got the first issue it treats os component as packages (if anything fails the whole system goes down) make a note here: the issue is for “Unix like os” GOPIos is going to fix this pacman the name is intutive but using it - it do not feels so apk add app name(alpine linux), pkg install package name(termux and freebsd) let me give some example on pacman ### Updating the system To update the system and all installed packages: ``` sudo pacman -Syu ``` `-S` installs packages. `-y` refreshes the package database. `-u` upgrades all packages. ### Installing a package ``` sudo pacman -S vim ``` ### Removing a package ``` sudo pacman -R vlc ``` This removes the package but leaves its configuration files. ### Removing a package and its dependencies ``` sudo pacman -Rns vlc ``` `-R` removes the package. `-n` removes configuration files. `-s` removes unused dependencies. ### Searching for a package ``` pacman -Ss vlc ``` This will search for `git` in the repositories. ### Listing installed packages ``` pacman -Q ``` ### Getting package info ``` pacman -Qi vlc ``` ### Viewing package contents To view the files installed by a package: ``` pacman -Ql vlc ``` ### Download a package, without installing it ``` sudo pacman -Sw vim ``` This will download the package files to the local cache (usually located in `/var/cache/pacman/pkg/`) but will not install them. ### Cleaning the package cache To remove unused packages and clean up the cache: ``` sudo pacman -Sc ``` Cache directory: /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ Database directory: /var/lib/pacman/ To remove all cached packages, even those that are currently installed: ``` sudo pacman -Scc ``` ### List all dependencies recursively If you want to see a complete list of **all dependencies** (including the dependencies of dependencies), you can use `pactree`. This is not part of `pacman` itself, but it is a separate tool commonly used in Arch Linux for visualizing package dependency trees. To install `pactree`: ``` sudo pacman -S pactree ``` Then, you can use it to show the dependency tree for a package: ``` pactree <package_name> ``` ``` pactree -slu vlc ``` dependencie check on debian derivatives are easy ``` apt-cache depends vim apt-cache rdepends ``` mandatory frequent update of key ``` sudo rm -r /etc/pacman.d/gnupg sudo pacman-key --init sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux sudo pacman-key --refresh-keys ``` ``` git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/google-chrome.git cd google-chrome makepkg -si ``` ### AUR helper yay / paru ``` sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git cd yay makepkg -si yay -S google-chrome yay -S visual-studio-code-bin yay -S whatsapp-nativefier ``` ### nix ``` sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon source /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh nix-shell -p python39 ``` nix-env --rollback is the most powerfull function i find, plus nix develop github:user/repo is wonderful i hope gopios will be a better os for general people to do ordinary tasks.