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Pacman Home Page
================
A simple library-based package manager
Introduction
------------
pacman is a utility which manages software packages in Linux. It uses simple
compressed files as a package format, and maintains a text-based package
database (more of a hierarchy), just in case some hand tweaking is necessary.
pacman does not strive to "do everything." It will add, remove and upgrade
packages in the system, and it will allow you to query the package database for
installed packages, files and owners. It also attempts to handle dependencies
automatically and can download packages from a remote server.
History
~~~~~~~
Version 2.0 of pacman introduced the ability to sync packages (the `$$--sync$$`
option) with a master server through the use of package databases. Prior to
this, packages would have to be installed manually using the `$$--add$$` and
`$$--upgrade$$` operations.
Version 3.0 was the switch to a two-part pacman- a backend named libalpm
(library for Arch Linux Package Management), and the familiar pacman frontend.
Speed in many cases was improved, along with dependency and conflict resolution
being able to handle a much wider variety of cases. The switch to a
library-based program should also make it easier in the future to develop
alternative front ends.
Documentation
-------------
Manpages
~~~~~~~~
There are several manpages available for the programs, utilities, and
configuration files dealing with pacman.
* linkman:PKGBUILD[5]
* linkman:libalpm[3]
* linkman:makepkg[8]
* linkman:makepkg.conf[5]
* linkman:pacman[8]
* linkman:pacman.conf[5]
* linkman:repo-add[8]
Changelog
~~~~~~~~~
For a good idea of what is going on in pacman development, take a look at the
link:http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=pacman.git[Gitweb] summary
page for the project.
See the most recent
link:http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=pacman.git;a=blob_plain;f=NEWS;hb=HEAD[NEWS]
file for a not-as-frequently-updated list of changes. However, this should
contain the biggest changes in a format more concise than the commit log.
Releases
--------
`------------`-------
Date Version
---------------------
2009-01-05 v3.2.2
2008-08-26 v3.2.1
2008-07-30 v3.2.0
2008-04-01 v3.1.4
2008-03-06 v3.1.3
2008-02-20 v3.1.2
2008-01-20 v3.1.1
2008-01-09 v3.1.0
2007-09-16 v3.0.6
2007-06-17 v3.0.5
2007-05-08 v3.0.4
2007-04-28 v3.0.3
2007-04-23 v3.0.2
2007-04-04 v3.0.1
2007-03-25 v3.0.0
2006-02-02 v2.9.8
2005-09-16 v2.9.7
2005-06-10 v2.9.6
2005-01-11 v2.9.5
2004-12-19 v2.9.4
2004-12-18 v2.9.3
2004-09-25 v2.9.2
2004-09-24 v2.9.1
2004-09-18 v2.9
---------------------
Source code for all releases is available at
link:ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/other/pacman/[]. To install, download the newest
available source tarball, unpack it in a directory, and run the three magic
commands:
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install
You may wish to read the options presented by `./configure --help` in order to
set appropriate paths and build options that are correct for your system.
Development
-----------
Mailing List
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a mailing list devoted to pacman development, hosted by Arch Linux.
link:http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/pacman-dev/[Subscribe] or
link:http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/[view the archives].
Source Code
~~~~~~~~~~~
Development of pacman is currently done in GIT. The central repository is
hosted by Arch Linux, although some of the developers have their own trees (ask
on the above mailing lists if you are interested in finding the locations of
these trees).
The current development tree can be fetched with the following command:
git clone git://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.git pacman
which will fetch the full development history into a directory named pacman.
You can browse the source as well using
link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=pacman.git[Gitweb].
If you are interested in hacking on pacman, it is highly recommended you join
the mailing list mentioned above, as well as take a quick glance at our
link:HACKING.html[HACKING] document.
link:submitting-patches.html[submitting-patches] is also a recommended read.
Not as familiar with code as you'd like to be, but still want to help out? If
you speak a foreign language, you can help by either creating or updating a
translation file for your native language. Instructions can be found in
link:translation-help.html[translation-help].
Other Utilities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Although the package manager itself is quite simple, many scripts have been
developed that help automate building and installing packages. These are used
extensively in link:http://archlinux.org[Arch Linux]. Most of these utilities
are available in the Arch Linux projects
link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/gitweb.cgi[Gitweb browser].
Utilities available:
* link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=abs.git[abs] - ABS (Arch Build System), scripts to download & use the Arch Linux PKGBUILD tree
* link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=devtools.git[devtools] - tools to assist in packaging and dependency checking
* link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=namcap.git[namcap] - a package analysis utility written in python
* link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=pacbuild.git[pacbuild] - a package building system utilizing a daemon
* link:http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=srcpac.git[srcpac] - a bash build-from-source pacman wrapper
Bugs
----
If you find bugs (which is quite likely), please email them to the pacman-dev
mailing last at mailto:pacman-dev@archlinux.org[] with specific information
such as your commandline, the nature of the bug, and even the package database
if it helps.
You can also post a bug to the Archlinux bug tracker
link:http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?project=3[Flyspray]. Be sure to file
bugs under the Pacman project.
Pacman/libalpm in the Wild
--------------------------
Although Arch Linux is the primary user of pacman and libalpm, other
distributions and projects also use pacman as a package management tool. In
addition, there have been several projects started to provide a frontend GUI to
pacman and/or libalpm.
Arch derivatives:
* link:http://archie.dotsrc.org/[Archie] - Arch Live on steroids
* link:http://www.faunos.com/[FaunOS] - A portable, fully integrated operating system based on Arch Linux
* link:http://larch.berlios.de/[larch] - A live CD/DVD/USB-stick construction kit for Arch Linux
Other distributions:
* link:http://www.delilinux.org/[DeLi Linux] - "Desktop Light" Linux, a Linux distribution for old computers
* link:http://www.frugalware.org/[Frugalware Linux] - A general purpose Linux distribution for intermediate users (pacman is forked and maintained separately)
Pacman/libalpm frontends:
* link:http://shaman.iskrembilen.com/[Shaman] - A GUI frontend using Qt and libalpm
Copyright
---------
pacman is Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Dan McGee <dan@archlinux.org> and
Copyright (C) 2002-2006 Judd Vinet <jvinet@zeroflux.org> and is
licensed through the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.
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