Pacman, the Arch Linux package manager
The developers of the popular distribution "Arch Linux" announced that the distribution is already using the new update of your Pacman 6.1 package manager. This new version brings with it a series of improvements and features that optimize the package management process, in addition to support improvements have been implemented in better sections.
For those who do not know about Pacman, you should know that this, like APT, DNF or RPM, It is a package manager, which is used in distributions based on Arch Linux, such as Arch Linux itself and derived systems such as Manjaro Linux. Pacman is responsible for handling the installation, updating, and removal of software, In addition, it simplifies software management by automating tasks related to the management of packages and their dependencies.
Main novelties of Pacman 6.1
One of the notable features of Pacman 6.1 is the introduction of CacheServer, This function allows caching downloaded packages, which speeds up the download of future packages and simplifies mirroring, thereby improving the efficiency and speed of package management operations.
Another change that stands out in this new version is in makepkg in which several improvements have been implemented, including ability to define replacement configuration files in the makepkg.conf.d directory, the use of the autodeps library instead of libdepends and libprovides, the ability to specify additional flags for Git via the GITFLAG environment variableYes, verify() function has been implemented for custom source verification and has been added checksum support for git/mercurial/bzr sources.
In addition to this, it is noted that changed the behavior of the repo-add utility To not add package digital signature information to the repository by default, the “–include-sigs” option has been added to return this behavior if necessary and md5sum is added to the repository database.
Alson improvements have been made to the –sysroot option (it should be noted that targets for -U are no longer interpreted relative to sysroot) the cache server support, additional output format specifiers added to “–print” option and it is now possible to add extended fields with package data, providing more details and customization options in package management.
Pacman 6.1 provides more detailed diagnostic results when file conflicts are detected or when packages are corrupted, making troubleshooting easier, and offers improved support for the Web Key Directory (WKD), strengthening security and reliability. integrity of downloaded packages.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- A transition has been made to OpenSSL to compute sha256 and md5 hashes, improving security and efficiency in verifying packet integrity.
- An extended data field has been included to provide arbitrary packet information.
- Now, when using the –dbonly option, the hooks will not be executed.
- More details are provided when encountering file conflicts or corrupt packages.
- Improvements have been made to WKD support
- Handling of malformed download headers has also been improved.
- The openssl interface is used to calculate sha256 and md5 sums.
- Fixed multiple download progress bars.
- Added -D option to change the directory before compiling.
- Improved trimming and debugging package support.
- Added configurable support for LTO.
- PGP signing keys from sources are now included in the package if available.
- “pkgtype” is stored in xdata.
- Removed md5sum from mtree files.
- MAKEPKG_LIBRARY has been documented.
If you are interested in knowing more about it, you can consult the details In the following link.
As for those who want their system to already use this new version of Pacman, all they have to do is update their packages (sudo pacman -Syu) to be on this new version of Pacman.