Arch Linux

multixrulz

Member

Registered: 2005-04-05

Posts: 25

Installing a new package on a (slightly) out of date system

There's one thing about pacman/archlinux that has occasionally bugged me, and when it happens I really hate it.  The archlinux repos seem to contain only the most recent packages.  This is great if you live near the bleeding edge and keep your system updated regularly, but I'm generally trying to do other things with my computer and it could go a couple of months without a pacman -Syu.  If I then try to install a package I haven't had before, chances are it or one of its dependencies won't exist in the arch repos anymore.  This leaves me with three options:

1. Do a full system upgrade first (which is an all-night download for me).
2. Do a pacman -Sy and then install the package I want, hoping that there won't be any dependency problems and that none of the updated dependencies will break my existing programs.
3. Download the PKGBUILD from CVS, which I have done.  The problem with this approach is that it's rather more time consuming than it needs to be.

I wanted to throw out a couple of ideas for solutions.

1. If a package is updated, keep the old version around until it's 6 months old (or some age anyway).  Any packages older than this where a newer version exists can be deleted out of the repo.  Obviously this will cost disk space.
2. Enable pacman to download the PKGBUILD for any given package and version, so that it can be built quickly and easily.

If I'm wrong about these problems, or the solutions already exist, please forgive me, I did search the forums first though.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Installing a new package on a (slightly) out of date system

1. If a package is updated, keep the old version around until it's 6 months old (or some age anyway).  Any packages older than this where a newer version exists can be deleted out of the repo.  Obviously this will cost disk space.
2. Enable pacman to download the PKGBUILD for any given package and version, so that it can be built quickly and easily.

Run abs, and you get the latest PKGBUILD in /var/abs. Usually, this will build on an older set of packages. Though you do realise, that if you are running arch, you will have to Syu inevitably, maybe, rather you should do it more frequently, like once a week, to make it less painful.

James

dawei

Member

From: China

Registered: 2007-05-02

Posts: 29

Re: Installing a new package on a (slightly) out of date system

Maybe you should try release repository. I have not ever used it, and do not know if it should be used, but according to the wiki, this may be what you want.

The [release] repository is a snapshot of the [current] repository when the release was made. It is there mostly for historical purposes and is not intended for general use.

Last edited by dawei (2007-05-07 11:32:51)