Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

donniezazen · 2012-01-10 21:22:19

Hi,

I have been learning about Arch for a while - mostly trying different things and learning commands and how it works. In this learning process, I install a lot of things that may not be required in long run or make system more resource intensive or just cluttered. If you have been in such a situation, Is it a good idea to start afresh or keep messing up old system and clean install should be last resort? I often find clean install a lot easier to fix but it does require some time to re install all the system back.

Thanks.

oboedad55 · 2012-01-10 21:50:27

I used to do the reinstall thing as well to fix things, but since moving to Arch I find great benefit in learning to fix problems that come up. As a result, I find even with other distros I do a lot less re-installing and more fixing. As Arch is a rolling release, on occasion things get weird for a bit so it's good to learn how to repair things. That said, I've found Arch to be as stable and reliable as any other Linux distro.

Trilby · 2012-01-10 21:54:29

There shouldn't be a need to reinstall.

If you're not already familiar with all of pacman's bells and whistles now is a good time to learn. There are various switches that will list packages that are no longer needed (eg, installed as a dependency to a package that is now gone).

Not long ago I went though the full list of all packages installed to do some housecleaning. It took a little bit of effort, but I ended up learning more about what was on my system. I learned even more when I removed something that I guess I needed!

karol · 2012-01-10 22:06:56

Just keep notes about what you install and why and remove these packages when they're no longer needed, same for compiling from source (AUR).
Whether it's easier to do a clean install is a matter of preferences.

There are apps and scripts that will show you what you e.g. where did your hard drive space go (ncdu), a nice graph of all packages on your system (pacgraph) or will list the packages according to their size - w/ or w/o taking their dependencies into consideration.

Zerathidune · 2012-01-11 03:24:07

The clutter issue is essentially why I wrote pacsync:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=109028

As karol points out, there are plenty of tools out there to help you with this stuff; pacsync was just my take on how to do it. I don't think it's the perfect solution, but it comes in handy.

karol · 2012-01-11 03:59:10

There's also paccache but it's not even in [testing] yet: http://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.gi … accache.in

anonymous_user · 2012-01-11 04:16:37

Depending on your patience/will, I say you should keep learning. "Clean" your system by uninstalling the stuff you don't want, delete any stray config files, etc. And should you encounter any issues, just post here on the forums.

donniezazen · 2012-01-11 07:16:26

Thanks for all the answers. Keeping a list of packages to install sound like a good idea. I find Arch linux more uniform, in configuration, than any other linux distro i have used. Wiki helps a lot.

AnnS · 2012-01-14 15:55:39

Since I installed Arch, I've installed and removed many packages. And usually when I remove one, I use "pacman -Runs", to remove also unneeded packages, dependencies and conf files. But there's always something left, for example, files created by the package in ~/. And I was wondering, is there a way to see which files were left/created by a package so I can remove them as well? I'm guessing not, but it would be nice to be sure.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-01-10 21:22:19

Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#2 2012-01-10 21:50:27

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#3 2012-01-10 21:54:29

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#4 2012-01-10 22:06:56

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#5 2012-01-11 03:24:07

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#6 2012-01-11 03:59:10

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#7 2012-01-11 04:16:37

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#8 2012-01-11 07:16:26

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

#9 2012-01-14 15:55:39

Re: Clean Install or keep messing up with old system.

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