Arch Linux

karabaja4

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 1,040

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pacman -Syyu issue

Seeing the discussion in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274310 regarding pacman -Syyu.

I've seen this point made many many times over the years. If -Syyu is supposed to be used only in extreme conditions, why not replace it with something like pacman --repair-my-broken-database?

There are so many instances where this has caused headaches, not to mentioned bandwidth costs, and it could be solved by just creating a more elaborate flag.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,456

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Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Do you think people are running that command by accident?  As in the y key stuck down too long and they didn't realize?  I doubt it.  I'm pretty sure it's used intentionally.  So changing the flag to something cumbersome would not change anything.

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karabaja4

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 1,040

Website

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Do you think people are running that command by accident?  As in the y key stuck down too long and they didn't realize?  I doubt it.  I'm pretty sure it's used intentionally.  So changing the flag to something cumbersome would not change anything.

I think they are running it out of ignorance, not malice. I'm assuming they are thinking they will have a "fresher" state of database or something along those lines if they re-download it every time, not realizing it is only supposed to be used under certain conditions (which would have been made obvious from the flag name itself). By my impression most of these users seem to fall into the category of newcomers.

Last edited by karabaja4 (2022-02-22 04:01:17)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,456

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Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Ignorance yes, but they aren't pulling it out of thin air.  It's recommended it all the bad "tutorials".  And those who run the command are blindly copy-pasting without a moment's thought about what the command does.  Changing the name of the command wouldn't effect this.

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

karabaja4

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 1,040

Website

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

If someone copy-pastes a command from a tutorial that says "pacman -Syu --repair-my-broken-database" I would hope that one would ask themselves how or why was my database broken in the first place? For the same reason those writing the tutorials would be less likely to suggest it. Or maybe I am being too optimistic?

Contrast that to copy-pasting or suggesting "pacman -Syyu" which doesn't really convey any information.

Last edited by karabaja4 (2022-02-22 04:30:55)

dogknowsnx

Guest

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Imho a warning by pacman does make sense when issuing 'pacman -Syyu' - something like "please make sure that your top mirror is up-to-date before proceeding", or "please only use this command after running reflector, or you may end up with a partial update". Or make reflector a hard dependency which pacman will call whenever 'pacman -Syyu' is issued...

Last edited by dogknowsnx (2022-02-22 10:37:22)

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,668

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Imho a warning by pacman does make sense when issuing 'pacman -Syyu' - something like "please make sure that your top mirror is up-to-date before proceeding", or "please only use this command after running reflector". Or make reflector a hard dependency which pacman will call whenever 'pacman -Syyu' is issued...

But what about the legitimate uses of -Syyu where you *DONT WANT* to synch to the most recent mirror but instead want to use the mirror that you have explicitly selected? At some stage you have to assume the user actually knows what they are doing and you can't protect against stupidity.

This is the Arch way.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Unlikely, all of these make assumptions about the context pacman is used in. Pacman is not intended to be Arch specific, and making references to Arch specific tools or usage methodologies within pacman is explicitly something that would unlikely be made part of the tool directly.

dogknowsnx

Guest

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

But what about the legitimate uses of -Syyu where you *DONT WANT* to synch to the most recent mirror but instead want to use the mirror that you have explicitly selected? At some stage you have to assume the user actually knows what they are doing and you can't protect against stupidity

The "recommendation" to use 'pacman -Syyu' has been floating around and spread for along time, so a warning could help in cleaning up the mess/educate the user. One could introduce a 'force' flag to achieve what your example suggests. Just my 5 cents...

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

My post was a reply to your (dogknowsnx) suggestions btw, making this more cumbersome for other potential users/distros that might have real and legitimate usecases for -yy is unlikely to be included.

dogknowsnx

Guest

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

My post was a reply to your (dogknowsnx) suggestions btw, making this more cumbersome for other potential users/distros that might have real and legitimate use cases for -yy is unlikely to be included.

The question remains whether it (-Syyu) does more harm than to actually serve its purpose...

EDIT: Since when does arch care about other distros? Porting pacman can still be a custom thing (maybe I'm mal-informed about pacman's origins - idk)

Last edited by dogknowsnx (2022-02-22 12:26:04)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

Not generically, in the context of Arch sure, in the context of something else, potentially not.

Arch doesn't care, pacman does. Making  references to other packages that have no relation to pacman (reflector doesn't strictly spoken) is very, very unlikely to be included. While pacman is developed and primarily used by the Arch developers it is intended as a generic package manager. Most exotic example is the MSYS2 which is a package/environment manager for Windows applications (... and distributing builds of relevant FOSS software)

Last edited by V1del (2022-02-22 11:04:38)

dogknowsnx

Guest

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

@V1del, thanks for your explanation. Then it comes down to "no risk - no fun", I guess

Last edited by dogknowsnx (2022-02-22 11:51:02)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,852

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

We had a -f flag in the past that was necessary in some cases but got abused a lot .

The short version was removed and replaced by --force, didn't help much.
Eventually the actions --force was intended for were analysed and an entirely new parameter --overwrite was introduced that only did what was really really needed.

Occasionally overwrite is still abused.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2022-02-22 11:50:04)

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dogknowsnx

Guest

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

@Lone_Wolf That was very enlightening, thanks.

My picking up "reflector" was mainly because it seems to be one of the most recommended tools on the forum, afaict.

merlock

Member

Registered: 2018-10-30

Posts: 262

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

It also seems that -Syyu is a de facto recommendation/default for Manjaro.

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NoSavvy

Member

From: Dorchester, Dorset, UK

Registered: 2013-01-23

Posts: 125

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

It is also included in the installed bash file, under aliases when installing with the "Arch graphical installer version". Not good

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,081

Re: pacman -Syyu issue

There is no graphical Arch installer, if you use that you use something made by an amateur that shouldn't create a distribution, let alone claim they'd install Arch for you, the installer will actively leave you with a misconfigured system.