Arch Linux

baal

Member

Registered: 2023-11-02

Posts: 32

Troubleshooting:Downgrading all packages from cache to a specific date

A recent update introduced a video related bug. In order to troubleshoot and pinpoint which update caused this, I would like to revert to a specific date.

What I would like to achieve is the following:
In folder ‘/var/cache/pacman/pkg/’ I still have the old packages. I would like to specify a date, and install the most recent ‘old’ package that came before this specified date. For instance, there is mesa_x.x1, came out on 1st April, mesa_x.x2, came out on 25th April, mesa_x.x3, came out on 5th May. If I set a date 1st May,  mesa_x.x2 should be installed. If I set a date say 13th April,  mesa_x.x1 should be installed.

There are multiple packages that rely on each other. Version mismatches can cause issues. If I manually downgrade ‘mesa’, but do not downgrade eg ‘libva’, the system could break. The cleanest cut would be just downgrading all packages while troubleshooting. Hopefully I could then identify the package version that introduced the bug and then I could report it to the developers.

I must not be the first person who wants to do this ; can anyone recommend a solution?

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,330

Website

Re: Troubleshooting:Downgrading all packages from cache to a specific date

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_L … cific_date

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

baal

Member

Registered: 2023-11-02

Posts: 32

Re: Troubleshooting:Downgrading all packages from cache to a specific date

Perfect! Thank you.