Cannot upgrade pacman or system

mw007 · 2013-04-14 17:42:00

I've been attempting to upgrade my system for about a week. First had issues with yaourt being installed, because package-query requires pacman<4.1 - note that I have not yet been able to upgrade pacman, and am still running pacman-4.0.3-7 so I'm not sure why package-query was having issues with pacman. So, I've uninstalled yaourt and package-query in an attempt to succesfully upgrade pacman. Still a no-go, here is the output of my latest attempt: http://pastebin.com/XpmhJkcg

So, I cannot upgrade pacman because /var/lock and /lib exist? Aren't those directories fairly standard across most linux distro's and not owned by any single package?

I'm more than a bit stumped by this one, as I've looked at various forum posts and wiki articles. Any guidance is appreciated.

WorMzy · 2013-04-14 17:50:13

Read the news from, oh, about here. You may even need to go further back, depending on when the last time you did a -Syu.

Long story short, you have a lot of catching up to do. It may be faster for you to reinstall. If you choose to go the upgrade route, keep a copy of the latest LiveCD handy just incase.

opt1mus · 2013-04-14 17:50:59

When was the last time you upgraded?

https://www.archlinux.org/news/filesyst … equired-1/

https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-lib- … a-symlink/

Scimmia · 2013-04-14 17:51:57

Holy crap, have you really not updated since before last July? If so, it would probably be easier to just reinstall fresh than try to do the /lib -> /usr/lib update now.

outro_tipo · 2013-04-14 17:57:00

about /lib:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … i%3Ausrlib

i would also remove /var/lock and /var/run and try again

mw007 · 2013-04-14 18:12:52

Thanks for the quick reply all. Here's the scoop on the box. It hasn't been upgraded in a long time, as it's my desktop turned HTPC. It was connected to my 24-inch monitor, and everything looked great! Since last July, I've bought a new TV, and the fonts in fluxbox are now illegible due to the size of the text. I've tried configuring X and changing the DPI, to no avail.

My thoughts were to install cinnamon (I run mint on my son's desktop and cinnamon works really well). However, cinnamon had dependencies that had to be resolved, so I decided to upgrade the entire system.

The other part of the story is that the box has a 1 TB drive in it, which is almost full, and I have no other drives large enough to handle copying the drive in order to do a fresh install.

It seems like I have a lot more reading to do, and have to take the upgrade path.

Thanks for the info :-)

opt1mus · 2013-04-14 18:18:16

mw007 wrote:

[...]My thoughts were to install cinnamon (I run mint on my son's desktop and cinnamon works really well). [...]
It seems like I have a lot more reading to do, and have to take the upgrade path.[...]

Partial upgrades are not supported. If you're leaving months of time between upgrades - for whatever reason - Arch is not the distro for that.

-- edit below --

Also note that Cinnamon is likely to be dropped from the official Arch repos, but a PKGBUILD is available in the AUR to install from Git. I think that it shouldn't be too painful to upgrade your system, despite all the changes that've been made, good luck!

Last edited by opt1mus (2013-04-14 18:22:40)

Scimmia · 2013-04-14 18:21:13

outro_tipo wrote:

about /lib:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … i%3Ausrlib
i would also remove /var/lock and /var/run and try again

I kind of doubt that Wiki page will work anymore now that we've moved beyond glibc 2.16

Last edited by Scimmia (2013-04-14 18:22:28)

mw007 · 2013-04-14 18:27:47

I wasn't attempting a partial upgrade, I was trying to do a full-system upgrade using pacman -Syu. I've skimmed the linked articles about /lib and am not really sure how a simple change of directory (even though you'd still need to symlink to the previous location) would cause such a pain point. But I'll relent, the decision to do so was made and I'll have to live with that.

But I think you hit the nail on the head. Arch simply isn't the distro for me anymore, where as it was less than a year ago. Thanks for the insight into that!

JohnnyWho · 2013-04-14 19:10:27

Come on, that `s trivial, download pacman and package-query manualy and then do pacman -Ud pacman.tar.xz and pacman -Ud package-query.tar.xz

HalosGhost · 2013-04-14 19:11:51

JohnnyWho wrote:

Come on, that `s trivial, download pacman and package-query manualy and then do pacman -Ud pacman.tar.xz and pacman -Ud package-query.tar.xz

… No. Re-read through the thread, the OP hasn't updated in quite some time and will have to go through several of the major migrations. Not that trivial.

All the best,

-HG

opt1mus · 2013-04-14 19:12:32

Here's some discussion on why the changes had been made, including future intentions. I agree with the way forward, it's been discussed a fair amount and is backed up well.

Arch may still work for you in your use case, I certainly didn't intend my previous post to sound condescending. I understand some people manage to maintain a system with moderate gaps betwixt updates, but now you're aware that It just might take you by surprise - when you do get around to an update - what changes have occurred.

Trilby · 2013-04-14 19:16:55

mw007, the comment on partial upgrades was likely due to the log you shared including the command `pacman -Su pacman` rather than `pacman -Syu`. You should just use '-Syu' and try to get through the hangups resulting from that.

Whether or not arch is the right distro for your situation is not a comment about you. No one suggested that you were not right for arch - but if regular updates are not practical, then arch is simply the wrong tool for the job.

mw007 · 2013-04-14 19:39:24

opt1mus wrote:

Here's some discussion on why the changes had been made, including future intentions. I agree with the way forward, it's been discussed a fair amount and is backed up well.
Arch may still work for you in your use case, I certainly didn't intend my previous post to sound condescending. I understand some people manage to maintain a system with moderate gaps betwixt updates, but now you're aware that It just might take you by surprise - when you do get around to an update - what changes have occurred.

I definitely didn't mean to sound condescending either; I apologize if I did. I've used arch for so long now, that it honestly never dawned on me that taking my desktop machine that I once updated once every week or so, and using as something entirely different would require me to switch methods of thinking (and unfortunately distributions). I love arch, and always will, but I do feel that what you said is entirely accurate. My change in usage of the machine dictates that I probably shouldn't be running arch on it any longer (not sure I can give up on it though). I'd like to "set it and forget it" since the machine is going to be used to play videos and music.

Trilby wrote:

mw007, the comment on partial upgrades was likely due to the log you shared including the command `pacman -Su pacman` rather than `pacman -Syu`. You should just use '-Syu' and try to get through the hangups resulting from that.
Whether or not arch is the right distro for your situation is not a comment about you. No one suggested that you were not right for arch - but if regular updates are not practical, then arch is simply the wrong tool for the job.

Ahh was more than likely a bad paste. I was using `pacman -Syu` originally, and was trying to get just pacman updated before attempting to upgrade the rest of the system - was hoping maybe a new version of pacman would resolve the file conflicts for me. I do realize that the -u in `pacman -Su pacman` was not needed, it was a mistake on my part.

All of this being said, I still want a slim distribution. For me, that's arch. So, I think the best course of action is for me to head up to the store and buy a usbdrive large enough to hold what I need to keep, then install arch fresh.

Thanks for setting me on the right track here folks :-)

ght · 2013-04-15 17:52:19

I agree that reinstalling from scratch is likely the easiest way in this case, but just for reference, if you want to bring your system up to date again after a long time without updating, you should check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Upgrade_Path .

Arch Linux

#1 2013-04-14 17:42:00

Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#2 2013-04-14 17:50:13

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#3 2013-04-14 17:50:59

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#4 2013-04-14 17:51:57

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#5 2013-04-14 17:57:00

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#6 2013-04-14 18:12:52

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#7 2013-04-14 18:18:16

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#8 2013-04-14 18:21:13

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#9 2013-04-14 18:27:47

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#10 2013-04-14 19:10:27

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#11 2013-04-14 19:11:51

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#12 2013-04-14 19:12:32

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#13 2013-04-14 19:16:55

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#14 2013-04-14 19:39:24

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

#15 2013-04-15 17:52:19

Re: Cannot upgrade pacman or system

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