pull down to refresh
I don't get the case difference logically. I really lean on mnemonics as well for learning. I just haven't figured that out for pacman. This is how I learned Vim and its something I think about when trying to remember anything new.
-S Sync makes no sense to me for install.-s Search makes sense but I'm not sure why its lowercase-y makes no sense for refreshing.
I swear its like the creator is trolling us all.
-u makes sense but why lower case-Q Query makes sense but why upper case and query being local doesn't. Why not lowercase for local and upper for searching?
I would argue that the massive number of CLIs out there that do not follow these patterns is a signal.
I will add... I'm a long time CLI guy and Vim user.
Thanks for the info though.
-U uppercase allows you to install a package from a local file, while still downloading dependencies from the db, so if you do for example pacman -U ~/firefox.tar.gz will download all the dependencies for firefox specified in the tar.gz, but then install the version in your .tar.gz not the one in the sync db.
And if I remember correctly, there's also another -u, that only works with -R, which removes packages only if they're not needed as a dependency of something else.
Yeah, that sounds right. You're making my point btw :)
Maybe this is a common criticism but I don't recall ever hearing it. Honestly, it kinda seems intentionally obtuse and I get that really. The types of questions you see on forums for Mint are... very different from other distros like Arch.
Sorry... its like nails on a chalkboard.
Q queries your local system but s searches remote repos for packages... while S syncs remote to local...
I'm trying to find the patterns and I do not see them.
Pacman has some pretty weird flag choices, but they make more sense once you get the logic behind them:
-S (sync): Grabs and installs a package from the database
-s (search): Just a modifier telling pacman "don't install anything, just search"
-y (refresh): Updates your package database so it knows what's new out there
-u (update): Upgrades your installed stuff to the newest versions
-Q (query): Shows what packages you've got installed
-R (remove): Kicks a package off your system
So when you run
pacman -S firefox, you might not get the newest Firefox version if your local database is outdated. For the latest, you'd needpacman -Sy firefox, which refreshes your database first, then installs Firefox.pacman -R firefoxjust removes Firefox from your systempacman -Ss firefoxsearches for any packages with "firefox" in the namepacman -Qs firefoxsearches for any installed package with "firefox" in the namethe only flag that that never made sense to me is -y, I have no idea why refresh is y