updating after 3 months of no update

vajorie · 2009-10-05 15:19:49

Basically, I've been away from my arch box for about 3 months, which means it did not get any updates during that time at all... Today, I tried updating and it showed about 2GB of updates (more than half of the system). If I know Arch enough, doing this at once will break the system. I was wondering how I should go about doing this (hopefully, not "one by one"), and if there are any automation tools available that are suited for something like this?
Thanks

newgargamel · 2009-10-05 15:21:22

C'mon, 3 months is not that much!

takedown · 2009-10-05 15:29:04

vajorie wrote:

...and if there are any automation tools available that are suited for something like this?
Thanks

yes, pacman -Syu

.:B:. · 2009-10-05 16:02:09

Don't be such a chicken .

Seriously. The fun is in breaking it, then fixing it.

Jamie · 2009-10-05 17:14:49

vajorie wrote:

doing this at once will break the system

Will it really!? Seriously? I know nothing is perfect as I've upgraded many different distributions many times. Sometimes it goes smooth, sometimes it doesn't. I was rather hoping Arch would (in general, if not always) be able to upgrade itself, most of the time anyway.

Crows · 2009-10-05 17:24:43

No, it won't break. Simple rule of arch updating - if it breaks then it would have done so even if you'd -Syued daily for the last year. It's just the package's fault in the end.

Last edited by Crows (2009-10-05 17:25:10)

Gen2ly · 2009-10-05 18:04:23

Well, their is the potential problem that a previous version of a package did an update on the system the newer version no longer has in it. If you want to be absolutely sure, you should do a reinstall. I've seen this in Gentoo a good number of times that updates after a month could have problems because they update so frequently. Three months though isn't that bad. Personally I'd try it and pay close attention to all the news that occurred from here to there.

lucke · 2009-10-05 18:05:36

It will break only as much as the upstream "breaks" - e.g. the new kernel might not work as nicely on your PC as the old one. Fortunately, in Arch, owing to its simplicity, it's easy to fix things (including rolling back).

Miles28 · 2009-10-05 18:07:42

Not for 3 monts but, my laptop is been -Syued each two months more or less in the last year, and I've never got any big problem. Nothing that could be fixed consulting the arch forums or pacman log.

Good luck

Jamie · 2009-10-05 18:16:20

@ above posters, that's what I was thinking. If something breaks it would have broken anyway with my daily "pacman -Syu" .

skottish · 2009-10-06 03:47:45

I just upgraded a laptop that a friend of mine has had at work for months without any known problems. I did take some time to read the logs and handle the configuration files (.pacnew and such). So I second what has been already brought up, after you do it go through /var/log/pacman.log and see what things need your attention.

tomk · 2009-10-06 05:50:14

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57205 .. it's a sticky for a reason.

vajorie · 2009-10-10 02:09:12

thanks for all the replies (which encouraged me to just do it). I went ahead and upgraded everything at once. Even the inittab file was dealt with correctly, but there were some errors with texlive installation (yet, it seems to work). So, i think nothing broke.

Thanks again for all the help.

bernarcher · 2009-10-10 09:38:25

vajorie wrote:

but there were some errors with texlive installation (yet, it seems to work).

TeXLive is known to need some afterwork with updates every now and then. Have a look e.g. at this thread and the TeXLive FAQ wiki of course.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-05 15:19:49

updating after 3 months of no update

#2 2009-10-05 15:21:22

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#3 2009-10-05 15:29:04

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#4 2009-10-05 16:02:09

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#5 2009-10-05 17:14:49

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#6 2009-10-05 17:24:43

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#7 2009-10-05 18:04:23

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#8 2009-10-05 18:05:36

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#9 2009-10-05 18:07:42

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#10 2009-10-05 18:16:20

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#11 2009-10-06 03:47:45

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#12 2009-10-06 05:50:14

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#13 2009-10-10 02:09:12

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

#14 2009-10-10 09:38:25

Re: updating after 3 months of no update

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