Arch Linux

vladimirbazhanov

Member

Registered: 2023-03-16

Posts: 2

How clean is Arch package manager?

Hi everyone! I have a question about pacman, actually about how it manages package's files.

Let's suppose there is a package foo.pkg in which there are three files, for example /bin/foo 1, /bin/foo2, /bin/foo3.

Then the next version of the program Foo comes out and it has only foo1 and foo2, and there is no binary foo3, well, it just so happened, the program has changed.

How does the package manager will do, it will delete foo3 or leave it untouched, but only update foo1 and foo2, because they are in the new version package?

If the package manager is smart and knows how to delete files that were in the old version of the package and that are not in the new one - that is great. If he can't, then rolling release distributions should be a bunch of junk after a while, unless of course they are reinstalled periodically, but this contradicts the very idea of rolling release.

Who knows, how does Pacman works in this case, pls let me know, it's very interesting theme for me.

Thanks!

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,605

Website

Re: How clean is Arch package manager?

Pacman removes all files from the previous version of the package and extracts all the files from the new version.

A bit more complex logic is applied to files in the backup array (usually configuration files): pacman handling of configuration files.

Last edited by mpan (2023-03-16 16:43:46)

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Paperclips in avatars?

Psykorgasm

Member

Registered: 2011-11-24

Posts: 178

Re: How clean is Arch package manager?

It's very easy to write your own PKGBUILD to test this out.

vladimirbazhanov

Member

Registered: 2023-03-16

Posts: 2

Re: How clean is Arch package manager?

Pacman removes all files from the previous version of the package and extracts all the files from the new version.

A bit more complex logic is applied to files in the backup array (usually configuration files): pacman handling of configuration files.

Big thanks for your reply!