Arch Linux

mb720

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 12

When to ignore packages?

When upgrading, do you ever use pacman's --ignore flag or add IgnorePkg=some_package to /etc/pacman.conf?

I encountered this problem a couple of times where it became impossible after a kernel update to mount external drives until a reboot. Which is why I've added this to ~/.bash_aliases to avoid the problem:

alias upgrade-with-ignore-list="(set -x; sudo pacman -Syu --ignore linux,linux-firmware,linux-headers,linux-api-headers,virtualbox-host-modules-arch)"

Do you have something similar or just do pacman -Syu and reboot if there's a new kernel?

archimboldo

Member

Registered: 2016-03-07

Posts: 232

Re: When to ignore packages?

Well, this is a really weird post.

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eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: When to ignore packages?

I just add the kernel to IgnorePkg, and upgrade it manually with 'pacman -S linux' when I'm ready to reboot. This is a pretty common thing for people to do.

(Repeat as needed for headers and out of tree modules.)

P.S. The linux-api-headers are used for compiling userspace applications, there's no reason to ignore them. Neither the linux-api-headers nor linux-firmware are tied to the running kernel, you should not ignore either one of them.

Just ignore the kernel itself, any third-party modules you have like virtualbox-host-modules-arch, and the -headers package (if you have the -headers package installed at all, it is only needed for dkms modules.)

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Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,726

Re: When to ignore packages?

Load the usb-storage module on boot, then you should be fine for external drives (FS module, too, if necessary).

mb720

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 12

Re: When to ignore packages?

Thanks @eschwartz! Happy to hear that I'm not the only one ignoring kernel to avoid needing to reboot.

Thanks @Scimmia! I did so with 'echo "usb-storage" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules-load.d/usb-storage.conf'. Do you know the reason why usb-storage is not loaded at boot per default if it gets rid of the problem of unmountable external drives after a kernel upgrade?

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,456

Website

Re: When to ignore packages?

Is it actually not loaded?  That module is (likely) necessary, but definitely not sufficient for mounting most external drives - as Scimmia noted filesystem modules would be needed too for any filesystem that is not already in use.

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eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: When to ignore packages?

Thanks @Scimmia! I did so with 'echo "usb-storage" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules-load.d/usb-storage.conf'. Do you know the reason why usb-storage is not loaded at boot per default if it gets rid of the problem of unmountable external drives after a kernel upgrade?

*Nothing* is loaded at boot, per default, because that would be a user choice. Many people don't have this problem, and some people have several problems including this, so they just IgnorePkg, at which point they don't have the problem.

The kernel will load things when it needs to, but that is not per default. Then it will keep them around for later, generally. Everything is on-demand, unless the user chooses to force it because they happen to know that hotplugging devices is something they need.

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Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)