Arch Linux

gagula

Member

Registered: 2021-08-29

Posts: 2

maximum time for update without concerns? / update compiled progs?

I am thinking about to switching over to arch linux due to various reasons. The only thing which is holding me back is, that I read and heard a lot, that not updating over some time will probably break your system on the next update.
When I go on vacations I don't take my machine with me. But I did not find any time amount when after which this problem is likely to appear. Is it more in a range of 2 - 3 weeks or 1 month - 6 weeks or even 2 - 3 months?

I guess it is also depending on the software I use. Thus, a short explanation: I would consider my systems package-wise more on the lightweight side. Half gui, half tui tools and very few ncurses tools. I use a bare version of xfce and I am transitioning to window manager only.

slightly off topic, but because I'm considering arch linux also as a relatively light distro and I want to transition more to a lightweight system. Is there a proper way to handle the updates of packages compiled from source, as the suckless tools (suckless.org) because a comfortable sudo pacman -Syu unfortunately doesn't exist for self compiled programs. Do you have to subscribe for the developers newsletter or rss feed to know when there is a new version for the software or is there a more proper way to maintain your compiled programs updates?

Morn

Member

Registered: 2012-09-02

Posts: 886

Re: maximum time for update without concerns? / update compiled progs?

But I did not find any time amount when after which this problem is likely to appear. Is it more in a range of 2 - 3 weeks or 1 month - 6 weeks or even 2 - 3 months?

Several months could cause problems, but once a month should be fine I think. This was more of a problem in the past when pacman applied updates in alphabetical instead of chronological (release) order. I think ever since they changed that, breakage has become less likely with infrequent updates. However, still make sure to check the Arch front page news just in case manual intervention is needed.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,426

Website

Re: maximum time for update without concerns? / update compiled progs?

As long as you are not partially updating, a couple of months should not be an issue. Subscribe to the News feed on the front page and you will get a heads up about any significant interventions that are required.

For suckless tools, if you install them with a PKGBUILD (which you should), you can add them to a custom group (say, suckless), and then add that group to pacman.conf's IgnoreGroup array. When official versions are updated, you'll see the warning in pacman's output and know to rebuild them.

If they aren't in the official repos, then you could subscribe to the upstream feed for a heads up.

---

Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,007

Re: maximum time for update without concerns? / update compiled progs?

I am thinking about to switching over to arch linux due to various reasons. The only thing which is holding me back is, that I read and heard a lot, that not updating over some time will probably break your system on the next update.
When I go on vacations I don't take my machine with me. But I did not find any time amount when after which this problem is likely to appear. Is it more in a range of 2 - 3 weeks or 1 month - 6 weeks or even 2 - 3 months?

Before any update check the news on the Arch websites front-page which will warn of manual interventions you may need to perform.  The longer the time between updates the more packages that will be upgraded in each update.  So if there is a bug it may be harder to determine which package or release of a package introduced the issue.
For major breaking changes that require you to have updated the system before applying the next update has generally allowed a sixth month time frame.  Two to three months should be manageable.  If you missed updating the system for a much longer period of time you can use Arch_Linux_Archive#How_to_restore_all_packages_to_a_specific_date to split the time span into smaller increments.

gagula

Member

Registered: 2021-08-29

Posts: 2

Re: maximum time for update without concerns? / update compiled progs?

Thank you all for your fast and helpful reply! In PKGBUILD I should dive deeper into to understand it, but that hint already helped.