Searching and Querying

Rum has a full set of commands for finding packages and inspecting their metadata without changing anything on your system.

search

Searches package names and summaries for a substring, alias se. Add --showrepo to show which repo each result comes from.

rum search <term>

info

Shows detailed information about a package, its version, architecture, repository, and summary. Aliases: if, more.

list

Lists installed packages, optionally filtered by a name substring, alias ls. Useful flags include --base (in Split mode, list the base image instead of the overlay), --available (repo candidates not yet installed), --extras (installed but not in any repo), --obsoletes, --upgrades, --autoremove, and --showduplicates.

provides

Shows which package provides a given capability, whether that's a plain name, a versioned dependency, or a file path. Alias whatprovides.

rum provides /usr/bin/some-tool

check-update

Lists packages with a newer version available, without installing anything, alias check-upgrade. Add --json for machine readable output, which is what RakuOS Software uses to check for updates in the background.

repoquery

A richer metadata query tool, alias rq. Scope with --installed or --available. Reverse dependency lookups include --whatprovides, --whatrequires, --whatconflicts, --whatobsoletes, --whatrecommends, --whatenhances, --whatsuggests, and --whatsupplements, with --recursive to follow the chain transitively. You can print specific metadata fields directly with --requires, --provides, --conflicts, --obsoletes, --recommends, --enhances, --suggests, or --supplements. Other useful flags: -i, --info, --queryformat, --qf for custom output (run --querytags to see available tags), --duplicates, --srpm, --source, --location, --nvr, and --envra. One notable gap from dnf is that listing files owned by a package, dnf's --list, isn't implemented yet.

leaves

Lists overlay installed packages that nothing else depends on.

origin

Reports whether a package is installed, and if so whether it comes from the base image or the overlay.

rum origin <package-name>

changelog

Prints the RPM changelog for one or more installed packages.

needs-restarting

Scans running processes for any using a library or binary that's since been deleted or replaced on disk, and reports the affected process IDs so you know what to restart.

advisory

Shows security, bugfix, and enhancement advisory data where a repo publishes it, alias updateinfo. Subcommands are list, info, and summary, each filterable with --available, --installed, --updates, --all, --advisory <id>, --bugfix, --security, --enhancement, --newpackage, and --severity <level>.