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#1 2013-02-28 22:54:57

RacerX
Member
Registered: 2013-02-28
Posts: 4

[ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

Hello folks,

Quick background: I'm still very new to Linux, and by extension Arch Linux. I test drove a few flavors of Ubuntu and the minimal Unbuntu as well, and I wasn't satisfied with the degree of control during installation and configuration. Also, overall performance was less than desirable. Luckily, I found Arch. After reading the Arch Way, and the installation guide, I knew I'd have to give a try.

I feel solid in my decision--this is the way things should be, and I wish I'd stumbled on it sooner. For what it's worth, I'd just like to offer a general thank you and kudos for implementing a simple, bare bones philosophy, and maintaining the extremely informative wiki. I will say I had some major stumbling blocks configuring a few things, but I'm a problem solver by nature and I'm happy to report I have a fully working configuration. I like to tinker, and tweak, and adjust--and this is the perfect distribution for my needs.

Now as far as pacman and software selection, I do have a few questions that I'd be grateful for some experienced perspective on. First I guess I'd better give a brief description of my current setup.

I'm running the vanilla installation supplemented by the Xcfe desktop environment.

I like the command line, and I always find myself in a terminal or a TTY for most everything--but the GUI seems light and streamlined, and I certainly make use of it for convenience. My intention isn't to start a "my favorite app" thread, or anything of that nature.

What I'm needing guidance on is how to efficiently find light or minimal software packages, and intelligently comprehend the concept of dependencies and how to avoid any messy configurations or installations. I've used "pacman -Q" with a few keywords, but the issue is a lot of the names of packages seem to be case sensitive, and because a lot of the stuff is coming from all over the community, I can't see a clear naming/labeling convention.

If you could point me in a few directions, perhaps useful threads/stickys that offer insight, as well as a brief personal perspective on your methodologies, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Racer X

Last edited by RacerX (2013-03-02 22:30:16)


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#2 2013-02-28 23:00:17

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

Package names are always lower case. Read pacman's man page more thoroughly,

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#3 2013-02-28 23:14:34

frank604
Member
From: BC, Canada
Registered: 2011-04-20
Posts: 1,212

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

I don't think this belongs in this thread. 

There are a lot of neat tools in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewforum.php?id=27 that are made by the Arch community.  I've found some great lightweight apps there.  You can certainly google for "best lightweight linux app" to get a general gist.  If the app is in the official repository you can look up it's dependancies with pacman -Qi <packagename> also read up pacman tips at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … l_packages

What I also like to do is look at people's git or other repo's.  Look at people's signature, you will see them frequently.  They will have configs for their apps that they use.

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#4 2013-02-28 23:47:35

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

pacman -Q will query stuff you've already installed. Use pacman -Ss to search the repos. Use pacman -Si to see information for a package in the repos.

The wiki includes lists of recommended applications and of lightweight applications. There will also be recommendations specific to xfce.


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#5 2013-03-01 12:53:17

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

cfr wrote:

The wiki includes lists of recommended applications and of lightweight applications.

Not anymore.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … plications redirects to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … plications
An older version of that page may help: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?ti … did=162352


Edit: You can also search https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … plications for the word 'lightweight'.

Last edited by karol (2013-03-01 12:54:42)

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#6 2013-03-02 17:12:26

RacerX
Member
Registered: 2013-02-28
Posts: 4

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

Great, thanks for the clarifications and advice. Slowly getting a handle on how to manage the system. Got a few questions on updating, so I'll start a new thread.

Racer X


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#7 2013-03-02 22:20:06

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: [ solved ] New Archer with a few questions about pacman.

In that case, please edit your initial post and mark this thread as [solved] by tagging the subject line. Thanks.


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Arch Linux | x86_64 | GPT | EFI boot | refind | stub loader | systemd | LVM2 on LUKS
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