Instructions to clean up Arch Linux (Manjaro)

clean-up-arch-linux.md

Contents

• Clean pkg cache
• Remove unused packages (orphans)
• Clean cache in /home
• remove old config files
• Find and Remove
  • duplicates
  • empty files
  • empty directories
  • broken symlinks
• Find Large files

1 Clean pkg cache

List packages

ls /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ | less 

Remove all pkg except those installed

sudo pacman -Sc 

Remove all files

sudo pacman -Scc

Download manually from archive.

Automatically remove

sudo pacman -S pacman-contrib

Remove

paccache -r

Systemd timer create file in /etc/systemd/system/paccache.timer with the following contents

[Unit]
Description=Clean-up old pacman pkg cache

[Timer]
OnCalendar=monthly
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable by sudo systemctl start paccache.timer

Pacman post-transaction hook

2 remove unused packages

List unused

sudo pacman -Qtdq

Remove unused

sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq)

3 Clean home cache

cache is located in ~/.cache

4 Config Files

stored in ~/.config/

5 Find and remove

install rmlint package sudo pacman -S rm lint.

I recommend to limit Journal size also
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd/Journal#Journal_size_limit

Thank You

Thanks man

To list the packages you do not need sudo:

$ pacman -Qtdq

Another recommendation if you want remove large/orphans packages:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks#Listing_packages
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks#Removing_unused_packages_(orphans)

Edit:
About home .cache normally there are no problems to delete this, but a good practice would not delete only the old caches?...:

# find ~/.cache/ -type f -atime +30 -delete

About home .config: If you use VSCode don't do it without careful.

Another thing I find now useful is to remove the cache of all uninstalled packages using:

$ paccache -ruk0

r: Remove packages
u: specifies uninstalled packages,
k0: "keep" 0 versions

Is this really for removing unused packages sudo pacman -Qtdq? Like, There is linux-rt-manjaro
in my list of unused packages which is kernel module

@cybersexurity69 linux-rt-manjaro sounds more like the real time manjaro linux kernel and not as a kernel module (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unofficial_user_repositories#realtime).

What -Qtdq will do according to the man page is (-Q stands for querying the package database):

       -d, --deps
           Restrict or filter output to packages installed as dependencies. This option can be combined with -t for listing real orphans
           - packages that were installed as dependencies but are no longer required by any installed package.

       -t, --unrequired
           Restrict or filter output to print only packages neither required nor optionally required by any currently installed package.
           Specify this option twice to include packages which are optionally, but not directly, required by another package.

       -q, --quiet
           Show less information for certain query operations. This is useful when pacman’s output is processed in a script. Search will
           only show package names and not version, group, and description information; owns will only show package names instead of
           "file is owned by pkg" messages; group will only show package names and omit group names; list will only show files and omit
           package names; check will only show pairs of package names and missing files; a bare query will only show package names rather
           than names and versions.

Which means that you have not directly installed this package, but it was installed as a dependency which was later removed. So if you are sure you want to keep this package (since you use it), you can just reinstall the package: sudo pacman -S linux-rt-manjaro and it should not be shown in the list of packages which get removed.

Not sure if Manjaro in general handles things differently, such that any of the above information is not valid in that case. It should be valid for Arch itself.

thanks for all these commands

Thanks!

use sudo pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qtdq)
instead of sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) otherwise you would have to run it multiple times in a row

Thanks!

Thanks!

use sudo pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qtdq) instead of sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) otherwise you would have to run it multiple times in a row

-Rcns

Awesome! Thanks.

thank you.

🥺 Thanks everyone

thanks!

thanks

Very useful... Thank u, bro

Does sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) also remove config files, something like apt autoremove --purge for Debian based distros?

Does sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) also remove config files, something like apt autoremove --purge for Debian based distros?

Nope, see Removing packages

Thanks, very useful in maintaining arch-manjaro system clean

Thanks, Bookmarking this Gold

thanks

use sudo pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qtdq)
instead of sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) otherwise you would have to run it multiple times in a row

This won't work as -s is for --search
https://archlinux.org/pacman/pacman.8.html

That is only true for sync (-S) or query (-Q) operations. For remove (-R) operations -s is for recursive. See "Remove Options" on the pacman man page.

use sudo pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qtdq)
instead of sudo pacman -R $(pacman -Qtdq) otherwise you would have to run it multiple times in a row

This won't work as -s is for --search
https://archlinux.org/pacman/pacman.8.html

That is only true for sync (-S) or query (-Q) operations. For remove (-R) operations -s is for recursive. See "Remove Options" on the pacman man page.

You're right, I've removed my comment.

Immensely informative and practical.
Thank you so much!