Arch Linux

bjb_nyj101

Member

Registered: 2007-05-19

Posts: 7

Searching packages with Pacman

Im having trouble finding packages using pacman. I want to search all the repo's for the package I want, but If I don't get the package name exactly right, i get the message

error: 'openoffice': not found in sync db

These are the two commands that I have tried to use to look for packages

pacman -S packagename

and

pacman -Q packagename

but I can't get anything. What is the proper way to search for packages?

thanks,bj

Mr Green

Forum Fellow

From: U.K.

Registered: 2003-12-21

Posts: 5,914

Website

Re: Searching packages with Pacman

pacman -Ss foo

HTH

---

Mr Green

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Searching packages with Pacman

from man pacman

SYNC OPTIONS

[... unnecessary text removed ...]

       -s, --search <regexp>
           This will search each package in the sync databases for names or
           descriptions that match regexp.

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,094

Re: Searching packages with Pacman

I recomend that you read trough the pacman man page.

SYNC OPTIONS ( -S )
       -s, --search <regexp>
           This will search each package in the sync databases for names or
           descriptions that match regexp.

QUERY OPTIONS ( -Q )
       -s, --search <regexp>
           This will search each locally-installed package for names or descriptions
           that match regexp.

---

Evil #archlinux@libera.chat channel op and general support dude.
. files on github, Screenshots, Random pics and the rest

semperfiguy

Member

Registered: 2007-12-03

Posts: 224

Re: Searching packages with Pacman

Here is what I use:  I got it somewhere on these forums, but I like it.  put this in your .bashrc:

## Create a colorized pacman
alias pac='pacsearch'    
pacsearch () {
       echo -e "$(pacman -Ss $@ | sed \
       -e 's#core/.*#\\033[1;31m&\\033[0;37m#g' \
       -e 's#extra/.*#\\033[0;32m&\\033[0;37m#g' \
       -e 's#community/.*#\\033[1;35m&\\033[0;37m#g' \
       -e 's#^.*/.* [0-9].*#\\033[0;36m&\\033[0;37m#g' )"
}