Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

rlared · 2019-09-12 02:39:21

New full-time Arch user here! I've ran it a few times and always liked it but now that I can run Bitwig Studio flawlessly on it my plan is to finally switch to using it full time. I love running Arch + KDE Plasma!

Question: I was thinking when I run my system updates every few days, to somehow only have Pacman upgrade packages to versions that have been published already for a week or two. This way there is time for any major bugs or manual interventions to be reported for them, and it should reduce the likelihood of a surprise issue during upgrade. Is there a way to do this?

Thank you!

schard · 2019-09-12 03:46:03

All packages in the stable repos have been tested in testing. That's what it's for.
There is no point in installing outdated packages.

V1del · 2019-09-12 07:58:50

Doing this globally in the way your are suggesting will be guaranteed to run you into partial upgrade territory (there are updates of packages that will break packages that don't need an upgrade, read the links in that section)

kokoko3k · 2019-09-12 08:10:31

Don't fear breakage on Arch much.

First, by using Arch rollback machine (now https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux_Archive), is always possible to go back in time, you can even use that to fix packages version at a defined time (**) and still be able to install more (non up-to-date) packages without upgrading the whole system and avoiding partial updates.

Also, having linux-lts as a secondary boot option comes to rescue in case of unbootable systems when the problem is the kernel itself.
That said, i *never* had an unbootable system if not for my own fault.

The general advice is to check if a manual intervention is needed to update the system by checking the news: https://www.archlinux.org/news/
If not, go on and update everything; pay attention to the messages that pacman tells you during the update.

(**) Fixing packages to a defined time may give you a 'static' and stable system, but
1) It will be hard to get help from the community, because your packages version will likely differ from the ones used by other users.
2) the more time you let your system not up to date, the more the packages will be upgraded, the less you'll have a clue about what caused an hypotetical issue.
If you can, i'd suggest to upgrade as soon as you have the time to do it, so that you can spot easily what caused a problem.

--
EDIT (how bad is my english?)

Last edited by kokoko3k (2019-09-12 08:19:58)

Alad · 2019-09-12 09:11:35

I never had much trouble with (**), though other distributions may be more suitable for this purpose. In particular, you have to look up changelogs yourself, because in Arch there's nobody doing this for you - unlike say, Debian.

Use Arch long enough and you know what to look out for in terms of breakage. systemd updates are guaranteed to break for at least some users. Same holds for the kernel, whether it's linux, linux-lts or any other version. GNOME usually (but not always) announces major breakage for their libraries on planet.gnome.org (e.g https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/07 … -updates/).

All packages in the stable repos have been tested in testing. That's what it's for.
There is no point in installing outdated packages.

Nearly no packages in community go through community-testing.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-09-12 02:39:21

Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

#2 2019-09-12 03:46:03

Re: Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

#3 2019-09-12 07:58:50

Re: Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

#4 2019-09-12 08:10:31

Re: Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

#5 2019-09-12 09:11:35

Re: Pacman -Syu but only for packages in repo older than a week

Board footer