XBPS Package Manager

The X Binary Package System (XBPS) is a fast package manager that has been designed and implemented from scratch. XBPS is managed by the Void Linux team and developed at https://github.com/void-linux/xbps.

Most general package management is done with the following commands:

  • xbps-query(1) searches for and displays information about packages installed locally, or, if used with the -R flag, packages contained in repositories.
  • xbps-install(1) installs and updates packages, and syncs repository indexes.
  • xbps-remove(1) removes installed packages, and can also remove orphaned packages and cached package files.
  • xbps-reconfigure(1) runs the configuration steps for installed packages, and can be used to reconfigure certain packages after changes in their configuration files. The latter usually requires the --force flag.
  • xbps-alternatives(1) lists or sets the alternatives provided by installed packages. Alternatives is a system which allows multiple packages to provide common functionality through otherwise conflicting files, by creating symlinks from the common paths to package-specific versions that are selected by the user.
  • xbps-pkgdb(1) can report and fix issues in the package database, as well as modify it.
  • xbps-rindex(1) manages local binary package repositories.

Most questions can be answered by consulting the man pages for these tools, together with the xbps.d(5) man page.

To learn how to build packages from source, refer to the README for the void-packages repository.

Updating

Like any other system, it is important to keep Void up-to-date. Use xbps-install(1) to update:

# xbps-install -Su

XBPS must use a separate transaction to update itself. If your update includes the xbps package, you will need to run the above command a second time to apply the rest of the updates.

Restarting Services

XBPS does not restart services when they are updated. This task is left to the administrator, so they can orchestrate maintenance windows, ensure reasonable backup capacity, and generally be present for service upgrades.

To find processes running different versions than are present on disk, use the xcheckrestart tool provided by the xtools package:

$ xcheckrestart
11339 /opt/google/chrome/chrome (deleted) (google-chrome)

xcheckrestart will print out the PID, path to the executable, status of the path that was launched (almost always deleted) and the process name.

xcheckrestart can and should be run as an unprivileged user.

Kernel Panic After Update

If you get a kernel panic after an update, it is likely your system ran out of space in /boot. Refer to "Removing old kernels" for further information.

Finding Files and Packages

To search available repositories for packages, use xbps-query(1):

$ xbps-query -Rs <search_pattern>

The -R flag specifies that repositories should be searched. Without it, -s searches for locally-installed packages.

If you can't find a file or program you expected to find after installing a package, you can use xbps-query(1) to list the files provided by that package:

$ xbps-query -f <package_name>

The xtools package contains the xlocate(1) utility. xlocate works like locate(1), but for files in the Void package repositories:

$ xlocate -S
Fetching objects: 11688, done.
From https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/xlocate/xlocate
 + e122c3634...a2659176f master     -> master  (forced update)
$ xlocate xlocate
xtools-0.59_1   /usr/bin/xlocate
xtools-0.59_1   /usr/share/man/man1/xlocate.1 -> /usr/share/man/man1/xtools.1

It is also possible to use xbps-query(1) to find files, though this is strongly discouraged:

$ xbps-query -Ro /usr/bin/xlocate
xtools-0.46_1: /usr/bin/xlocate (regular file)

This requires xbps-query to download parts of every package to find the file. xlocate, however, queries a locally cached index of all files, so no network access is required.

To get a list of all installed packages, without their version:

$ xbps-query -l | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs -n1 xbps-uhelper getpkgname