pacman/Rosetta

This page uses a table to display the correspondence of package management commands among some of the most popular Linux distributions. The original inspiration was given by openSUSE's Software Management Command Line Comparison.

Tip: Arch users having to temporarily deal with another Linux distribution can use pacapt, a simple wrapper around other package managers.

Basic operations

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Search for package(s). What exact fields are being searched by default varies in each tool. Mostly options bring tools on par.	pacman -Ss	dnf search	apt search	zypper search or zypper se [-s]	emerge --search (-s) or emerge --searchdesc (-S)
Install package(s) by name				or zypper in	emerge
Get source package(s) and build dependencies				(zypper si) or	emerge, or explicitly
Only print the targets instead of performing the actual operation	(or )	dnf --setopt=tsflags=test	(or -s, --dry-run, )		()
Toggle the manual confirmations	or	() or dnf --assumeno	()	() or zypper --no-confirm ()	()
Refresh the local package repository	(see the warnings about partial updates)	or	apt update	or
Upgrade Packages - Install packages which have an older version already installed				zypper update or
Upgrade Packages - Another form of the update command, which can perform more complex updates -- like distribution upgrades. When the usual update command will omit package updates, which include changes in dependencies, this command can perform those updates.				zypper dup
Remove a package(s) and all dependencies by name				or zypper rm	()
Remove a package(s) and its configuration files	pacman -Rn	?		?	n/a
Remove a package(s) and all dependencies and configuration files		?		?	n/a
Remove dependencies that are no longer needed (orphans), because e.g. the package which needed the dependencies was removed.	( to also remove optional deps)			(just for removing a package) or (listing only and without recursion)	()
Remove packages no longer included in any repositories.	pacman -Qmq | pacman -Rs -		aptitude purge '~o'		?
Mark a package previously installed as a dependency as explicitly required.				(workaround which needs to reinstall the package)	()
Install package(s) as dependency / without marking as explicitly required.		dnf install and then	apt-mark auto	n/a (feature request)	()
Only downloads the given package(s) without unpacking or installing them			(into the package cache) or (bypass the package cache)		(-f)
Clean up all local caches. Options might limit what is actually cleaned.	pacman -Sc or		removes only unneeded, obsolete information or
Start a shell to enter multiple commands in one session
Show a log of actions taken by the software management.	read /var/log/pacman.log		read	read /var/log/zypp/history	read
Get a dump of the whole system information - Prints, Saves or similar the current state of the package management system. Preferred output is text or XML. (Note: Why either-or here? No tool offers the option to choose the output format.)	see	see
e-mail delivery of package changes					eselect news read

Querying specific packages

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Show all or most information about a package. The tools' verbosity for the default command vary. But with options, the tools are on par with each other.	or	or	or apt-cache policy	or	, emerge -pv or
Display local package information: Name, version, description, etc.		/	or	or	emerge -pv or
Display remote package information: Name, version, description, etc.			or		emerge -pv and or
Display files provided by local package			dpkg -L		equery files or
Display files provided by a remote package		or (from package yum-utils)
Query the package which provides FILE		(installed only) or (everything) or repoquery -f (from package yum-utils)	or dlocate	(installed only) or (everything)	or
List the files that the package holds. Again, this functionality can be mimicked by other more complex commands.	or				equery files or
Displays packages which provide the given exp. aka reverse provides. Mainly a shortcut to search a specific field. Other tools might offer this functionality through the search command.				or zypper wp	(only installed packages) or
Search all packages to find the one which holds the specified file.			or is using this functionality.		or
Show the changelog of a package			apt-get changelog

Querying package lists

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Search for package(s) by searching the expression in name, description, short description. What exact fields are being searched by default varies in each tool. Mostly options bring tools on par.	pacman -Ss	dnf search	apt search	zypper search or	or
Lists packages which have an update available. Note: Some provide special commands to limit the output to certain installation sources, others use options.		or	apt list --upgradable	or (just for patches)	emerge -uDNp @world
Display a list of all packages in all installation sources that are handled by the packages management. Some tools provide options or additional commands to limit the output to a specific installation source.			or (Cache only) or		portageq all_best_visible /
Generates a list of installed packages
List packages that are installed but are not available in any installation source (anymore).		dnf list extras			eix-test-obsolete
List packages that were recently added to one of the installation sources, i.e. which are new to it.			or
List installed local packages along with version			or	or	qlist -ICv
Search locally installed package for names or descriptions		rpm -qa '*<str>*'
List packages not required by any other package		or
List packages installed explicitly (not as dependencies)		dnf history userinstalled		zypper search | grep -E '^i\+' (workaround)	or
List packages installed automatically (as dependencies)		(workaround)

Querying package dependencies

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Display packages which require X to be installed, aka show reverse dependencies.	or	dnf repoquery --alldeps --whatrequires or	apt-cache rdepends or
Display packages which conflict with given expression (often package). Search can be used as well to mimic this function.	or
List all packages which are required for the given package, aka show dependencies.	or	or	apt-cache depends or
List what the current package provides	or		or	zypper info --provides	equery files or
List all packages that require a particular package			or
Display all packages that the specified packages obsoletes.	or
Generates an output suitable for processing with dotty for the given package(s).

Installation sources management

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Installation sources management	edit /etc/pacman.conf	edit	edit	edit	or
Add an installation source to the system. Some tools provide additional commands for certain sources, others allow all types of source URI for the add command. Again others, like apt force editing a sources list. apt-cdrom is a special command, which offers special options design for CDs/DVDs as source.	edit /etc/pacman.conf	dnf config-manager			or
Refresh the information about the specified installation source(s) or all installation sources.	(always upgrade the whole system afterwards)	dnf clean expire-cache and then		or	or
Prints a list of all installation sources including important information like URI, alias etc.			apt-cache policy	or	or
List all packages from a certain repo	paclist <repo>			or zypper se -r <repo>
Disable an installation source for an operation
Download packages from a different version of the distribution than the one installed.			or (dependencies not covered)	zypper install -r <repo> package	and then emerge package

Overrides

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Add a package lock rule to keep its current state from being changed	edit /etc/pacman.conf modifying IgnorePkg array	edit adding/amending the option		or put package name in
Delete a package lock rule	edit /etc/pacman.conf removing package from IgnorePkg line			zypper rl or remove package name from	(or )
Show a listing of all lock rules				or view	cat /etc/portage/package.mask
Set the priority of the given package to avoid upgrade, force downgrade or to overwrite any default behavior. Can also be used to prefer a package version from a certain installation source.	edit /etc/pacman.conf modifying HoldPkg and/or IgnorePkg arrays		, apt-cache policy		edit adding a line with
Remove a previously set priority					edit removing offending line
Show a list of set priorities			apt-cache policy or
Ignore problems that priorities may trigger.				n/a

Verification and repair

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Verify single package	pacman -Qk (can add another )
Verify all packages	pacman -Qk (can add another )
Reinstall given package; this will reinstall the given package without dependency hassle	pacman -S
Verify dependencies of the complete system; used if installation process was forcefully killed			apt-get check
Use some magic to fix broken dependencies in a system	for pacman dependency level, use ; for shared library level, use or (from )		and then aptitude install
Add a checkpoint to the package system for later rollback		(unnecessary, it is done on every transaction)		n/a
Remove a checkpoint from the system	n/a	n/a		n/a
Provide a list of all system checkpoints	n/a			n/a
Rolls entire packages back to a certain date or checkpoint	n/a			n/a
Undo a single specified transaction	n/a	dnf history undo		n/a

Using package files and building packages

Action	Arch	Red Hat/Fedora	Debian/Ubuntu	SLES/openSUSE	Gentoo
Query a package supplied on the command line rather than an entry in the package management database
List the contents of a package file				rpm -qpl
Install local package file, e.g. app.rpm and uses the installation sources to resolve dependencies		dnf install		zypper in	emerge
Updates package(s) with local packages and uses the installation sources to resolve dependencies					emerge
Add a local package to the local package cache mostly for debugging purposes.	cp package-filename /var/cache/pacman/pkg/			n/a
Extract a package
Install/Remove packages to satisfy build-dependencies. Uses information in the source package	Use ABS and makepkg -seoc
Display the source package to the given package name(s)				n/a
Download the corresponding source package(s) to the given package name(s)	Use ABS and makepkg -o		or
Build a package	makepkg -s	(normal) or mock (in chroot)		, then build, and then	or
Check for possible packaging issues	namcap (requires namcap)	rpmlint	lintian	rpmlint	repoman

Log file rotation

By default, Arch Linux does not rotate . See, for example, and . This is in contrast to the default policy of most other Linux distributions. Some distributions, notably Gentoo, hardly write log files by default.

See also

• Changes in DNF CLI compared to Yum