Arch Linux Maintenance - Pacman maintenance - Chris Titus Tech
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Date: 2022-03-20
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Comments and reviews: 10
Micha-
Two important things:
1. You forgot pacnew files. I run Manjaro for two years till I realized there are good ways to compare default, new config templates (pacnew files) with currently working configs. Most programs will work with legacy config settings but with time some things may stop to work or break so the very important part of maintenance is to go through pacnew files, compare it to configs and incorporate changes in them. For that, I use meld and pacnew-chaser but others use diff so there are various methods to approach that. Usuing manually Meld is also enough, by the way Meld is a fantastic program.
2. You demonize this maintenance or at least it sounds like a lot of work. I didn't know those things for a very long time and I was still able to run Manjaro for a long time without any breakage but with time I worked out some, easy and on-demand routines:
- I always use -sudo pacman -Syyu- to update the system. I believe you miss-spoke in your video because I would swear you said it is refreshing mirrors, while in reality, it is a force-updating database.
- Cleaning pacman cache depends on how much space you have in your root partition so usually something points me that it's short of space and then I clean the cache. I don't have any regular schedule for that. It's enough to be aware of it so you I handle it on a need-to basis.
- integrating pacnew files, it's enough to check them once every 6 months or even once a year, usually, I just check it out of the curiosity or because I noticed some interesting pacnew file during update - again, no regular schedule
- checking errors, this happens also naturally, OS changes with time and some packages bring regressions or other bugs and then I check journalctl or other log tools, then try to solve solvable, important problems, while leaving harmless or hardware/kernel bugs that I can't do anything about
- backup, this I do regularly before every bigger update
- refresh pacman-mirros - when using manjaro stable, this is needed once every couple of months, on testing or unstable usually once a month, but this is visible because update downloads are below max download speeds, so I break the update, refresh mirrors and the start the update again - I don't do it regularly, only when it's needed.
- I disagree about AUR, if you know what you are doing, you can have dozens of dozens of AUR packages and it all be fine. Again, you can react on the need-to basis. For example, lately, I realized that rambox is outdated in AUR and its maintainer can't compile new versions, he simply doesn't know how, so I just used rambox from snap. If an AUR package gets old, I mark it as outdated and if maintainer won't react too long, I take action. Sometimes there are compilation problems, people comment on it but with time they get resolved, etc.
All in all, this all is just common sense and a basic understanding of how Arch/Manjaro and a rolling release works. I don't burden myself with regular maintenance schedules, I just react naturally to what is happening. This allowed me to run the same Manjaro installs for years without breaking. Sure, some issues show up but usually they look worse than they really are. Often I think: is this the time I must finally re-install the system? It looks like it. Then it turns out to be some trivial, quick fix and all is good.
Yes, Arch-based systems do need maintenance but it's enough to know why and how it works so it isn't that bad as it sounded, or at least it sounded for me as something time demanding or complex. Or maybe you are right to warn some users who just install Manjaro or Arch without aiming to understand it and then whine when something goes wrong? It also may be that I'm just used to running Manjaro and maintenance is just in my blood and feels effortless while for others it does require working out some new habits and knowledge? Besides, even Ubuntus and Debians need some maintenance as well - mostly autoremove so Linux users must be aware that a Linux system is like a car - you need to take care of it, otherwise, it won't run far.
I believe that some people simply shouldn't run Arch-based systems. Manjaro often fools people that it's so user-friendly but it's still Arch-based so I always repeat that Manjaro is USER FRIENDLY ROLLING SYSTEM and not just user-friendly system. There is a big difference here.
Anyway, good video with the exception you omitted pacnew files which is an important part of Arch system maintanance.
reply
Two important things:
1. You forgot pacnew files. I run Manjaro for two years till I realized there are good ways to compare default, new config templates (pacnew files) with currently working configs. Most programs will work with legacy config settings but with time some things may stop to work or break so the very important part of maintenance is to go through pacnew files, compare it to configs and incorporate changes in them. For that, I use meld and pacnew-chaser but others use diff so there are various methods to approach that. Usuing manually Meld is also enough, by the way Meld is a fantastic program.
2. You demonize this maintenance or at least it sounds like a lot of work. I didn't know those things for a very long time and I was still able to run Manjaro for a long time without any breakage but with time I worked out some, easy and on-demand routines:
- I always use -sudo pacman -Syyu- to update the system. I believe you miss-spoke in your video because I would swear you said it is refreshing mirrors, while in reality, it is a force-updating database.
- Cleaning pacman cache depends on how much space you have in your root partition so usually something points me that it's short of space and then I clean the cache. I don't have any regular schedule for that. It's enough to be aware of it so you I handle it on a need-to basis.
- integrating pacnew files, it's enough to check them once every 6 months or even once a year, usually, I just check it out of the curiosity or because I noticed some interesting pacnew file during update - again, no regular schedule
- checking errors, this happens also naturally, OS changes with time and some packages bring regressions or other bugs and then I check journalctl or other log tools, then try to solve solvable, important problems, while leaving harmless or hardware/kernel bugs that I can't do anything about
- backup, this I do regularly before every bigger update
- refresh pacman-mirros - when using manjaro stable, this is needed once every couple of months, on testing or unstable usually once a month, but this is visible because update downloads are below max download speeds, so I break the update, refresh mirrors and the start the update again - I don't do it regularly, only when it's needed.
- I disagree about AUR, if you know what you are doing, you can have dozens of dozens of AUR packages and it all be fine. Again, you can react on the need-to basis. For example, lately, I realized that rambox is outdated in AUR and its maintainer can't compile new versions, he simply doesn't know how, so I just used rambox from snap. If an AUR package gets old, I mark it as outdated and if maintainer won't react too long, I take action. Sometimes there are compilation problems, people comment on it but with time they get resolved, etc.
All in all, this all is just common sense and a basic understanding of how Arch/Manjaro and a rolling release works. I don't burden myself with regular maintenance schedules, I just react naturally to what is happening. This allowed me to run the same Manjaro installs for years without breaking. Sure, some issues show up but usually they look worse than they really are. Often I think: is this the time I must finally re-install the system? It looks like it. Then it turns out to be some trivial, quick fix and all is good.
Yes, Arch-based systems do need maintenance but it's enough to know why and how it works so it isn't that bad as it sounded, or at least it sounded for me as something time demanding or complex. Or maybe you are right to warn some users who just install Manjaro or Arch without aiming to understand it and then whine when something goes wrong? It also may be that I'm just used to running Manjaro and maintenance is just in my blood and feels effortless while for others it does require working out some new habits and knowledge? Besides, even Ubuntus and Debians need some maintenance as well - mostly autoremove so Linux users must be aware that a Linux system is like a car - you need to take care of it, otherwise, it won't run far.
I believe that some people simply shouldn't run Arch-based systems. Manjaro often fools people that it's so user-friendly but it's still Arch-based so I always repeat that Manjaro is USER FRIENDLY ROLLING SYSTEM and not just user-friendly system. There is a big difference here.
Anyway, good video with the exception you omitted pacnew files which is an important part of Arch system maintanance.
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Brian
I have been running vanilla Arch for 8 months on my primary box, never really tried any form of GUI for pacman/AUR.... but what I do on any install of Linux is first create a .bin in user dir and export the path to bashrc and place some scripts... one being an update script where all I do is type -update- on a CLI... for Arch installs that update script just contains -sudo pacman -Syu && paccache -rk1- as I prefer to only keep 1 copy of cache as I have noticed the default will really consume some space on your / partition... paccache requires pacman-contrib package.
I don't know if its because I run -update- 2-3 times a week or not... but I have yet to have any form of issue where as my Debian based Raspberry Pis have had several issues or incidents with apt... where all of a sudden some packages will be held back and I have to manually take care of items or I have to perform re-installs to clear errors for updates etc...
Its been a reverse experience for me... which may be odd (don't know really?)... in that, my Debian based installs have had periodic update issues but my Arch installs have been flawless up to this point.
My apt based upgrade scripts just contains -sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade-.... perhaps I am missing some extra stuff there ?
reply
I have been running vanilla Arch for 8 months on my primary box, never really tried any form of GUI for pacman/AUR.... but what I do on any install of Linux is first create a .bin in user dir and export the path to bashrc and place some scripts... one being an update script where all I do is type -update- on a CLI... for Arch installs that update script just contains -sudo pacman -Syu && paccache -rk1- as I prefer to only keep 1 copy of cache as I have noticed the default will really consume some space on your / partition... paccache requires pacman-contrib package.
I don't know if its because I run -update- 2-3 times a week or not... but I have yet to have any form of issue where as my Debian based Raspberry Pis have had several issues or incidents with apt... where all of a sudden some packages will be held back and I have to manually take care of items or I have to perform re-installs to clear errors for updates etc...
Its been a reverse experience for me... which may be odd (don't know really?)... in that, my Debian based installs have had periodic update issues but my Arch installs have been flawless up to this point.
My apt based upgrade scripts just contains -sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade-.... perhaps I am missing some extra stuff there ?
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SysGhost
Another thing to keep in mind when maintaining your Arch (based) distribution:
Distributions based on arch, but isn't Arch, are -not- supposed to be maintained like it's Arch.
While it does work for most of the times to use solutions and methods found on the Arch wiki, things can break badly if one doesn't watch out.
If one uses Manjaro, use the Manjaro wiki first hand. Same goes with other arch-based distributions.
Far too many times I help users that keep forgetting, or simply ignoring the fact that their Arch -based- distribution is -not- Arch linux.
Best of all is to stay with your distributions documentation, and not rely on the documentation which your distribution is based on. Things will eventually break if you do.
TL;DR: Manjaro is not Arch. Based on, yes. But it is not the Arch. They are different. Things will break if you mix them up.
reply
Another thing to keep in mind when maintaining your Arch (based) distribution:
Distributions based on arch, but isn't Arch, are -not- supposed to be maintained like it's Arch.
While it does work for most of the times to use solutions and methods found on the Arch wiki, things can break badly if one doesn't watch out.
If one uses Manjaro, use the Manjaro wiki first hand. Same goes with other arch-based distributions.
Far too many times I help users that keep forgetting, or simply ignoring the fact that their Arch -based- distribution is -not- Arch linux.
Best of all is to stay with your distributions documentation, and not rely on the documentation which your distribution is based on. Things will eventually break if you do.
TL;DR: Manjaro is not Arch. Based on, yes. But it is not the Arch. They are different. Things will break if you mix them up.
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Wes
Thanks Chris. I enjoy your videos and they're really helpful. I'm not planning on installing Arch but figured that it would be good to see some of the system maintenance areas (and I did pick up a few tips). Now, I'm not a set-it-and-forget it guy, but it seems to me that the package manager is one of the most important factors influencing which distro someone might want to run. And you don't like PACMAN, and AUR sounds as though it needs quite a lot of babysitting. Perhaps because of this, Arch seems to have a bunch of different pseudo managers such as Yay and Yaourt that go in and out of fashion at various times. So rather than distro-hopping you can go package-manager-hopping. Thanks :D
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Thanks Chris. I enjoy your videos and they're really helpful. I'm not planning on installing Arch but figured that it would be good to see some of the system maintenance areas (and I did pick up a few tips). Now, I'm not a set-it-and-forget it guy, but it seems to me that the package manager is one of the most important factors influencing which distro someone might want to run. And you don't like PACMAN, and AUR sounds as though it needs quite a lot of babysitting. Perhaps because of this, Arch seems to have a bunch of different pseudo managers such as Yay and Yaourt that go in and out of fashion at various times. So rather than distro-hopping you can go package-manager-hopping. Thanks :D
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B.
I've been using arch for a little while now. My only gripe is the constant kernel and Nvidia updates. When I update them, I have to reboot ... Otherwise certain things don't work correctly. For example, after updating kernel , USB thumb drives doesn't work until a reboot. Certain kernel drivers/modules don't work until a reboot.
The problem with this is that there's literally a new kernel/Nvidia update every few days.
It's kind of a hassle to reboot so often. It makes me do updates less, because I put off updates reboots, so things don't stop working
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I've been using arch for a little while now. My only gripe is the constant kernel and Nvidia updates. When I update them, I have to reboot ... Otherwise certain things don't work correctly. For example, after updating kernel , USB thumb drives doesn't work until a reboot. Certain kernel drivers/modules don't work until a reboot.
The problem with this is that there's literally a new kernel/Nvidia update every few days.
It's kind of a hassle to reboot so often. It makes me do updates less, because I put off updates reboots, so things don't stop working
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ritual301
I've never had any issues with pacman whatsoever. Pacman will -not- update things that are installed via AUR or things installed from source, of course, so not _everything_ on your system is going to be updated. Anything installed outside mainline Arch repos is the users responsibility to keep up to date. Not sure where your particular issues came from, but I just wanted to throw that out there, as it was something that wasn't made too clear to me when I first started using Arch.
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I've never had any issues with pacman whatsoever. Pacman will -not- update things that are installed via AUR or things installed from source, of course, so not _everything_ on your system is going to be updated. Anything installed outside mainline Arch repos is the users responsibility to keep up to date. Not sure where your particular issues came from, but I just wanted to throw that out there, as it was something that wasn't made too clear to me when I first started using Arch.
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dragonballjiujitsu
You know, I after 18 years on Windows on my personal systems I switched over to Linux and MacOS. I still work on Windows computers daily due to running a computer repair business, but on my personal machines its all Mac or Linux. What you are talking about in your video is one of the reasons I got away from Windows. If I wanted to go through all this just to make sure updates didn't break my system I'd just go back to Windows.
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You know, I after 18 years on Windows on my personal systems I switched over to Linux and MacOS. I still work on Windows computers daily due to running a computer repair business, but on my personal machines its all Mac or Linux. What you are talking about in your video is one of the reasons I got away from Windows. If I wanted to go through all this just to make sure updates didn't break my system I'd just go back to Windows.
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Peter
This is how I deal with mirrors.
1. sudo pacman-mirrors --country Germany,Netherlands,Belgium && sudo pacman -Syyu to only have local mirrors
2. sudo pacman-mirrors -g
The second command sorts the mirrors which you selected with the first command. It seems easier than how Chris does it. Probably because I use a function which does the same thing as what Chris does manually. Do I overlook something?
reply
This is how I deal with mirrors.
1. sudo pacman-mirrors --country Germany,Netherlands,Belgium && sudo pacman -Syyu to only have local mirrors
2. sudo pacman-mirrors -g
The second command sorts the mirrors which you selected with the first command. It seems easier than how Chris does it. Probably because I use a function which does the same thing as what Chris does manually. Do I overlook something?
reply
Judas
I have a laptop with a manjaro installation on it and it hasn't been updated since 2017 or 2016 so most things are broken on it but it does boot and share its network with all my other devices which is the only purpose it needs to fulfill. I did update it at the end of each month until it just wouldn't do so anymore and complain about new packages replacing old ones and just refuse to update.
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I have a laptop with a manjaro installation on it and it hasn't been updated since 2017 or 2016 so most things are broken on it but it does boot and share its network with all my other devices which is the only purpose it needs to fulfill. I did update it at the end of each month until it just wouldn't do so anymore and complain about new packages replacing old ones and just refuse to update.
reply
Brad
Your videos about arch linux have made it clear to me I made the right choice in not using arch. I really don't see the value unless your hobby is maintaining your computer the way a mechanic maintains his favorite old car. A year with ubuntu on this machine, how many times have I had to do maintenance? Never. I just use the damn thing and install the packages I need with an apt install...
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Your videos about arch linux have made it clear to me I made the right choice in not using arch. I really don't see the value unless your hobby is maintaining your computer the way a mechanic maintains his favorite old car. A year with ubuntu on this machine, how many times have I had to do maintenance? Never. I just use the damn thing and install the packages I need with an apt install...
reply
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