Pacman can download packages in parallel to speed up the process. The number of parallel download threads can be controlled in the “/etc/pacman.conf” file. This can be useful on slower internet connections to install packages without disrupting other network activities.

To set the number of parallel download threads, edit “/etc/pacman.conf” file. Find the “ParallelDownloads” option in the file. If it is not present, add it under [options] section. Set the number of download threads. The ordering of options doesn’t matter. For example, to use 3 parallel download threads:

[options]
ParallelDownloads = 3

For very slow networks, consider ParallelDownloads = 1 and pacman --disable-download-timeout to avoid timeouts.