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:
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.
¶ Pamac configuration
When accessing the Preferences menu, the following screen is displayed (the user's password will be requested to access this menu):
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.
¶ Using pamac from the terminal
The available pamac actions when executed from the terminal are the following:
pamac --version
pamac --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-chrome
chromedriver-beta 89.0.4389.23-1 AUR
Standalone server that implements the W3C WebDriver standard (for google-chrome-beta)
chromedriver 89.0.4389.23-1 AUR
Standalone server that implements the W3C WebDriver standard (for google-chrome)
google-chrome-dev 91.0.4469.4-2 AUR
The popular and trusted web browser by Google (Dev Channel)
google-chrome-beta 90.0.4430.72-2 AUR
The popular and trusted web browser by Google (Beta Channel)
google-chrome [Installed packages] 90.0.4430.72-2 Reborn-OS
The popular and trusted web browser by Google (Stable Channel)
Installing Packages
pamac install <package>. In this example, google chrome is installed from terminal:
pamac install google-chrome
IMPORTANT: 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-desktop
Removing Packages
The pamac remove command is used interchangeably to remove a package from the repositories, or from the AUR. For example:
pamac remove google-chrome
IMPORTANT: 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 -i
Show detailed information of a package
Use pamac info to see, for example, the detailed information of google-chrome:
pamac info google-chrome
Name : google-chrome
Version : 90.0.4430.72-2
Description : The popular and trusted web browser by Google (Stable Channel)
URL : https://www.google.com/chrome
License : custom:chrome
Repository : Reborn-OS
Installed size : 244,8 MB
Depends on : alsa-lib gtk3 libcups libxss libxtst nss
Optional dependencies : pipewire: WebRTC desktop sharing under Wayland [Installed packages]
kdialog: for file dialogs in KDE
gnome-keyring: for storing passwords in GNOME keyring [Installed packages]
kwallet: for storing passwords in KWallet
libunity: for download progress on KDE
ttf-liberation: fix fonts for some PDFs - CRBug #369991 [Installed packages]
xdg-utils [Installed packages]
Packer : Unknown Packager
Building date : 15/04/21
Instalation date : 15/04/21
Installation reason : Explicitly installed
Signed : Yes`
Updating the System
Use pamac checkupdates to check for updates:
pamac checkupdates -a
Use pamac upgrade to update your system, including any AUR packages that may exist:
pamac upgrade -a
NOTE: 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 -o
And to remove these packages that are no longer used:
pamac remove -o
Cleaning 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 clean
There 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 3
Other Useful Pamac Functions
To find out if a certain file is owned by an application, you can use:
pamac search -f unrar
To force reinstall a package that already exists on your system:
pamac reinstall google-chrome