How do you make a list/file for pacman to install from?

Solution 1:

pacman -Qqen > pkglist.txt

To install:

pacman -S - < pkglist.txt

From ArchWiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks#List_of_installed_packages

Solution 2:

I know this is old but I wish to propose a more comprehensive solution.

The way I do it utilises the same idea and proposed in archlinux.org site.

• First you need the list of packages, this can be done with

  pacman -Qqe > pkglist.txt
  

  Here pacman -Q queries all installed programs, the -q removes version numbers and the -e is for listing the explicitly installed programs.

• Now, when we want to restore/install the programs, I prefer doing

  installable_packages=$(comm -12 <(pacman -Slq | sort) <(sort pkglist.txt))
  pacman -S --needed $installable_packages
  

  Here we only get the packages from the list are available from pacman. That is done with the comm -12 file1 file2 command. The -12 flag suppresses unique lines in file 1 and 2 and leaves us with the intersection of the two files; i.e., the installable packages.