Discussion about package updating

Nah, please don’t. Add/remove software is just a frontend to Pamac. Use Pacman, as intended. It’s easy…

sudo pacman -Syu

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I use it most of the time because the gui makes it more comfortable for me to find what I'm looking for. In my experience it hasn't really ever bugged out for me so what is the reason behind only using terminal? Is it a Linux thing or can pamac bug things out?

If you want a GUI, I think Garuda Assistant, update does pacman -Syu...

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Hey man I just wanna know if using pamac is actually problematic. On occasion I do update with Syyu because I learned that you need to do that once in a while.

Please use Pamac to install and remove software. Sure, it can be used to update but that’s not what it’s really made for. It has–in the past–lead to Partial Upgrades, which is a dangerous place to be.

You learned wrong. The double-y (yy) is only needed to re-download the pkg database after changing mirrors, for example. Otherwise it is an unnecessary strain on the pkg servers and is not a recommended practice.

But it’s a helluva lot better than ‘uu’

regards

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Oh might have been I misunderstood what was said to me. I was a noob back then and that was what I remembered. To run syyu occasionally to force update databases. Though it was on manjaro.

One problem I have seen is that updating through a mix of both pamac and pacman on occasion causes the newer than repos bug.

Otherwise pamac has made my Linux journey so much easier because I can just type whatever I want and search it and get relevant results. It makes package discoverability a thing in the package manager itself as opposed to searching it up on a browser than copy pasting the highly specific package name to download it. Also helped to fix problems caused by missing packages.

This is a misconception. The risk is the same and is originating from the update mirror server change.
This is done in a few cases, such as

  • Manually (or using alias like upd) running reflector, that could lead to a different server than the current as 1st in mirrorlist.
  • If you have left the random-mirror Server enabled and 1st in mirrorlist, which uses different Server for each transaction.

In such cases you have to completely allign-sync local to remote package list with pacman -Syyuu.

I suggest you disable random-mirror and don’t (ever, unless server is down or broken) change mirrorlist order.
I prefer to have only one Server enabled in mirrorlist. If something goes wrong with the server, I am still in control (so I will run with -Syyuu only whwn needed). :wink:

Pamac could have been the no-brains-go-to GUI for Arch package management, but… they wanted to re-invent the wheel, instead of using pacman for jobs, they do the same thing with new code. But, as every programmer knows, all programs have bugs (except pacman :laughing: as claimed in man pages) and pacman is hands-down more trustworthy than (any) pamac code.

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I fully agree (as most seasoned Arch vets will).

IMO it is fine to use a GUI based package manager for browsing packages and single package install/uninstall. However, updating the system is more reliably done with Pacman.

It’s your system do as you please, but seasoned Arch vets use the terminal for good reason.

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So my takeaway here is update the system through pacman only. However its fine to download and install packages through pamac. I can do that.

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You're on the right track!

As an aside, whoever thought that Arch users need to be notified that they have updates available really didn't think things through. Of course there are updates pending. There are always updates pending--it's Arch!

In 8(?) years, not one day has passed in Arch Land there wasn't an update. Not one.

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I love it when I get an update to any system but god damn on arch I actually get tired of it.

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I can see your point, but for me, I like it - it denotes constant improvement and I see it as a good thing, overall.

Horses for courses, though.

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Oh absolutely! I love it when I update and see the improvements to my system or feel it in some way shape or form. But when you get like 60 - 70 mb updates everyday its just :- "Ugh, I'll do it later". Which isn't a bad thing since its encouraged to update once a week

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It also denotes an unneeded systemd timer. Totally unnecessary, IMHO.

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I suppose, in a while, I'll see it your way, @Bro but it's still fresh for me. Gimme a li'l time :wink: Once the 'newness' wears off, I'll join you, no doubt :rofl:

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I was thinking the same. I used to do similar stuff, like read every new post daily in the Arch Forums.

Now I only read their Dustbin. :wink:

EDIT: Our similar “Preconditions & Expectations” here are also fairly entertaining.

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You should be aware of (if not already) the checkupdates command (provided by pacman-contrib). It is safely checks for repos available updates, without renewing pacman DBs. It can also download updates into pacman cache without installing them.

checkupdates  # show packages and versions pre/post
checkupdates | wc -l  #count of waiting updates
checkupdates -d # download updates into cache
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I use paru as my AUR helper, just because it uses the same syntax as pacman, and yay is not actively developed anymore. Also, I just like the gpu acceleration with alacritty, it speeds up all my package management

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You can do it. But I don't see any acceleration.

Try running a command which spits out a lot, I mean really a lot of output in a short time - there is definitly a very noticable difference :eyes:

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