pm - Friendly Pacman

pm is a friendly command-line interface for Arch Linux's pacman package manager. It replaces hard-to-remember combinations of uppercase and lowercase flags with clear commands such as pm install, pm search, and pm outdated.

pm was developed using the Bashly Command Line Framework and is distributed as a single Bash script.

Install

Installing using the setup script

The setup script installs the latest pm release and its Bash completions:

curl -Ls get.dannyb.co/pm/setup | bash

Feel free to inspect the setup script before running.

Installing manually

Download the pm script from the latest release, place it somewhere in your path, and make it executable:

wget https://github.com/DannyBen/pm/releases/latest/download/pm
sudo install -m 0755 pm /usr/local/bin/

Generate Bash completions with:

pm completions

Concept

Commands that can query two package sources use the same rule everywhere:

# Query packages installed on this system
pm list
pm info git
pm search terminal
pm browse

# Query all packages available in configured repositories
pm list --available
pm info git --available
pm search terminal --available
pm browse --available

--available can also be written as -a.

pm operates on pacman packages and configured binary repositories. It does not search, build, or update AUR packages.

Examples

# Install, update, and uninstall packages
pm install git fzf
pm update
pm uninstall fzf

# Check for available updates without upgrading
pm outdated

# Inspect package relationships and history
pm tree git
pm tree git --reverse
pm origin /usr/bin/git
pm history
pm history git

# Inspect repositories and foreign packages
pm repos
pm foreign

# Preview package-cache cleanup
pm clean --dry-run

Usage

pm - A friendly interface for pacman

Usage:
  pm COMMAND
  pm [COMMAND] --help | -h
  pm --version | -v

Package Management Commands:
  update        Update package databases and upgrade the system
  install       Install packages
  uninstall     Remove packages and their unneeded dependencies

Package Maintenance Commands:
  update-keys   Update the Arch Linux keyring
  clean         Remove old packages from the package cache
  outdated      List installed packages with available updates

Package Query Commands:
  list          List package names
  info          Show package information
  search        Search packages
  browse        Browse packages interactively

Package Analysis Commands:
  provides      Find packages that provide a command
  tree          Show a package dependency tree
  origin        Show which installed package owns a file
  history       Show package activity from the pacman log
  foreign       List installed packages absent from configured repositories
  repos         List configured package repositories

Internal Commands:
  completions   Generate bash completions

Run pm COMMAND --help for command-specific options and examples.

Optional dependencies

Most pm commands only require pacman. Additional commands declare their own dependencies and show installation instructions when needed:

Commands	Package
clean, tree	pacman-contrib
outdated	pacman-contrib, fakeroot
browse	fzf
provides	pkgfile
history	ripgrep

Uninstall

curl -Ls get.dannyb.co/pm/uninstall | bash

Contributing / Support

If you experience an issue, have a question or suggestion, or wish to contribute, feel free to open an issue.

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