Pacman's important files

chrismortimore · 2006-09-07 21:03:11

I'm redoing my backup scheme, and what important files are there for pacman? I've found /var/lib/pacman, and I suppose /var/cache/pacman is useful for a fast reinstall if need be. Is there anything else I need for a fast restoration? Also, where does pacman store what packages are explicitly installed (as in the ones shown by "pacman -Qe"), much like /var/lib/portage/world in Gentoo. The reason I ask for this specificly is because I find the easiest way to restore (other than cp or tar) is to just have a nice list of packages I explicitly installed and just plug that straight back into the package manager and let it do the rest.

T-Dawg · 2006-09-07 21:20:11

/var/lib/pacman/local is where all the locally installed package data resides. I run a backup script every night that spits out all installed packages into a a space separated list:

pacman -Q | cut -d' ' -f1 | paste -s | sed 's|s| |g' > filelist

then when you go to restore, all you have to do is a pacman -Sy `cat filelist`

chrismortimore · 2006-09-07 21:28:58

Cheers. It's good to know I'm definitely getting everything, and cheers for the script

allucid · 2006-09-08 03:44:26

Penguin wrote:

/var/lib/pacman/local is where all the locally installed package data resides. I run a backup script every night that spits out all installed packages into a a space separated list:
pacman -Q | cut -d' ' -f1 | paste -s | sed 's|s| |g' > filelist
then when you go to restore, all you have to do is a pacman -Sy `cat filelist`

would it be better to do a -Qe (instead of just -Q) and let pacman pull in the deps when you reinstall or will it not make a difference?

chrismortimore · 2006-09-08 07:41:35

I actually just read it as -Qe, didn't notice it was only -Q.. Doh! Works great with -Qe mind you.

T-Dawg · 2006-09-08 09:53:22

-Qe? I don't understand. Q is for a general installed package query, e modifies it to display orphaned packages, or those not explicitly installed by another package and is not a dependency. The results are different.

sebcactus · 2006-09-08 10:57:52

But if you only install the packages found in -Qe, the others (in -Q) will be installed too, because they are dependencies!

allucid · 2006-09-08 17:05:23

Penguin wrote:

-Qe? I don't understand. Q is for a general installed package query, e modifies it to display orphaned packages, or those not explicitly installed by another package and is not a dependency. The results are different.

I know the results are different. I thought packages that you explicitly install are internally represented differently by pacman than those that are pulled in as deps. It appears this is not true, though.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-09-07 21:03:11

Pacman's important files

#2 2006-09-07 21:20:11

Re: Pacman's important files

#3 2006-09-07 21:28:58

Re: Pacman's important files

#4 2006-09-08 03:44:26

Re: Pacman's important files

#5 2006-09-08 07:41:35

Re: Pacman's important files

#6 2006-09-08 09:53:22

Re: Pacman's important files

#7 2006-09-08 10:57:52

Re: Pacman's important files

#8 2006-09-08 17:05:23

Re: Pacman's important files

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