Note: This post is approximately a 4 minute read. Perhaps longer for someone for whom English is not their native language.
Note: For most OMLx Rock or OMLx ROME (rolling) users this first post provides more than enough to do your package management and system upgrades from command line (Konsole or terminal).
Some dnf commands may be abbreviated:
dnf in=dnf install
dnf ri=dnf reinstall
dnf dg=dnf downgrade
dnf rm=dnf remove
dnf up=dnf upgrade
dnf dsync=dnf distro-sync
The not so secret about package management in Linux is the Package Management GUI’s can take longer to learn and get used to than the command line interface (cli). The simplest thing is to open Konsole and type:
$ dnf --help
and:
$ man dnf
The help menu takes about a minute to a minute and a half to read. The man page takes about 3-5 minutes. Both are meant to be available for users to refer to as they use their system and need to find quickly how to do something. There are also wiki pages and docs about dnf. Using the DNF software package manager. Fedora wiki page. DNF Command Reference. Most users don’t really need to read these maybe just scan while you are getting used to dnf and know the links are available when you need to look something up. Same applies to --help menu and man pages, just scan them and know they are there if you need them.
Some basics for using dnf in OpenMandriva Lx All branches:
To install a package:
$ sudo dnf in package_name
To remove a package:
$ sudo dnf rm package_name
To upgrade an individual package:
$ sudo dnf up package_name
You can also do multiple packages separated by a space, for example:
$ sudo dnf command package_name package_name package_name package_name
To search repositories for a package:
$ sudo dnf search package_name
Note: I find that ‘dnf search’ will work with partial names as well which should make it lots easier to find stuff.
To cleanup any files and packages left in cache and to remove repository metadata:
$ sudo dnf clean all
This will force dnf to download fresh metadata next time dnf is run. Also after running clean all the next dnf command (like up, dsync, in, rm, autoremove) will list active repositories as it refreshes them.
To update your Rock system from command line it is wise to first run sudo dnf clean all:
$ sudo dnf clean all ; sudo dnf up
Rock systems will automatically get switched to new repositories when a new stable version of OMLx is released. For this upgrade you need the distribution upgrade command dnf distro-sync or dnf dsync. We will announce this in the Forum and include any special instructions users need for that particular distribution upgrade. The distribution upgrade command is:
$ sudo dnf clean all ; sudo dnf dsync
Or sometimes we will need to use the --allowerasing option when things like package names are changed by developers.
$ sudo dnf clean all ; sudo dnf --allowerasing dsync
To upgrade your ROME (rolling) system use the distribution upgrade command again it is wise to first run sudo dnf dsync:
$ sudo dnf clean all ; sudo dnf dsync
This is used in ROME (rolling) for technical reasons. At appropriate times OM developers copy Cooker repositories to ROME (rolling) repositories. So basically the same as when Rock repositories are changed form say OMLx 5.0 to OMLx 5.1. When this happens there are new distro-release packages which makes dsync necessary to pick up the new package list for that version. We will announce this in the Forum and include any special instructions users need for that particular distribution upgrade.
Some other common dnf commands:
autoremove - removes packages installed as dependencies that are no longer required by currently installed programs.
check-update - checks for updates, but does not download or install the packages.
downgrade - reverts to the previous version of a package.
info - provides basic information about the package including name, version, release, and description.
reinstall - reinstalls the currently installed package.
repolist - simply list enabled repositories.
User information: Some of the commands above are actually 2 linked commands run in sequence. The sequence does matter. In the above examples we used the semicolon [;] to link 2 or more commands. Some folks use && instead. If you wish to know more about this do an internet search.
If you should have any questions about the material presented here please make a post with a descriptive title in one of our Support forums or contact the contributor team at OpenMandriva Chat. Do not forget that you can do internet search when you have problems with your OMLx system.
