On 2/20/26 5:35 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
It's certainly also a matter of getting used to it. Since Arch is a true rolling release and you update regularly, groups of common suspects, so to speak, are usually updated as well, i.e., packages that are dependent on each other. Replacements are even announced with a "replace" question. It certainly depends on what you have installed, but I find the listing in a row quite good, as it gives me a quick overview of a large number of packages without having to scroll.
And thankfully, it is sorted alphabetically by package name, so you can quickly search for any package of concern in a 1000 package list.
Getting used to the package list in paragraph form is probably the best approach. You could always extract the package list and use sed or awk (or the "printf '%s\n' <stuff>" trick) to turn the stuff into a single column, but that's quite of bit of effort compared to simply making friends with the output.
But, being Linux, however you want to look at it is completely up to you. I know after using Arch for 17 years, I tend to take Ralf's approach and find the current output (thankfully sorted) very usable.
-- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
