How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

Succulent of your garden · 2026-04-14 11:47:17

So if I'm not wrong, every month a new release of an iso of Arch LInux is made. I assume that the only way in which the installation can be broken is when the pgp keys to verify the packages with pacman are expired. So now I'm going to do an installation with an iso from March of this year, but this made me think about if there is like an specific time in which an iso would work. Like if does exists a defined lifespan of the ISOs ?

5hridhyan · 2026-04-14 12:06:46

hmm, I don't think there is a fixed time like a ISO would expire, its like the older it gets the more friction you hit kind of thing, in most cases updating https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any … x-keyring/ and -Syu, probably should do the work

Succulent of your garden · 2026-04-14 20:27:45

yeah I think so, but I also think that updating the pgp keyring will be imposible by pacman if all the pgp keys are expired, So I assume that there must be like a lifespan of the ISO until all pgp keys expired. I wonder if that lifespan is a fixed value or not. I guess that you can add the new keys in someway also, but that's not my main question, but anyone who want to talk that in more deeply is also welcome

seth · 2026-04-14 20:50:56

wkd-sync, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … _regularly
You can install arch from every iso but it will become an insreasingly PITA working around keyring issues but also incompatibilities around the package compression (at some point zstd won't yet be supported), package changes (A becoming B becoming C) … what will force to to perform incremental updates using the ALA (the situation is incidentally the same when trying to update a really old installation after a couple of years - it's possible but not fun)

Phydoux · 2026-04-15 03:46:41

I just used the February 2026 ISO to install Arch in a VM. I tried the newest April one but was having some serious issues with user directories not being created. Came here to see if there was a change in the setting up of user accounts with the April ISO. I'll make a post later about this incident.

But yes, older ISOs do still work for installing Arch Linux

cryptearth · 2026-04-15 10:12:02

~ no AI was sloped for this reply

i had to look up on pgp and how arch does its keyring

to the rather simple question "for how long i can keep using an old install iso" the question is as equally simple: "for as long as its bundled keys can verify current signatures"

how about update the keyring within the install environment? well, that, too, works only as long as the bundled keys can verify the newer package
this maybe breaks at some point so you ciuld go with intermediate versions, say: install iso from 2020, then first update in order the keyring to 21, 22 ... 26 to keep the trust chain valid - and then you can use it as a recent iso

however, as seth mentioned, you may want to lookout for major changes like of pacman itself and maybe want to update that, too

another option, aside from keeping recent install iso around or use pxe, would be to have a small stand-alone full arch install on a thumbdrive that you keep up-to-date once a month

5hridhyan · 2026-04-16 12:12:10

ah, flashing new iso every month, without "forgetting", is kinda tough for me, and updating the keyring doesn't seem to be nice with older ISOs, and updating "layer by layer" is kinda inconvenient, any "practical"workarounds?

Edit:
might sound like a "XY" problem, but like you had one working machine and one day because of some reason you had to re-install, but you have old arch iso... which keys are old, it wont install, basically "friction" as F, you dont have another machine to flash a new iso...
so in that case it would be pain

Last edited by 5hridhyan (2026-04-16 12:35:26)

cryptearth · 2026-04-16 15:18:58

5hridhyan wrote:

any "practical"workaround?

i have setup pxe: it targets the ovh mirror with the "latest" path - so i rely upon ovh keep up

another idea: automated vm/container which runs a pacman update every day and is provided via nfs

5hridhyan · 2026-04-16 15:43:47

PXE isn’t viable for me since I don’t have a second machine... also I'm n00b LoL
anyways, I just created a systemd service which runs, and its supposed to/ will, remind/notify me every month, to grab the latest ISO
so I won't forget

Succulent of your garden · 2026-04-16 17:34:04

this:

seth wrote:

wkd-sync, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … _regularly

And this:

cryptearth wrote:

how about update the keyring within the install environment? well, that, too, works only as long as the bundled keys can verify the newer package
this maybe breaks at some point so you ciuld go with intermediate versions, say: install iso from 2020, then first update in order the keyring to 21, 22 ... 26 to keep the trust chain valid - and then you can use it as a recent iso

Explain what I was looking for ^^

But the big brain conversation after is nice. Can someone just made a cronjob that everyday pacman runs pacman -S pacman archlinux-keyring ? Or this in some point could make a dependency hell ?

seth · 2026-04-16 19:30:57

Can someone just made a cronjob that everyday pacman runs pacman -S pacman archlinux-keyring

That's not gonna achieve anything, "-Sy archlinux-keyring" would be very wrong (setting you up for other partial updates) and

systemctl status archlinux-keyring-wkd-sync

the timer actually does achieve what you're trying to do.

Succulent of your garden · 2026-04-16 20:03:29

seth wrote:

systemctl status archlinux-keyring-wkd-sync

Nice, so this is what 5hridhyan is maybe asking for. This would always have the pgp keys updated. I wonder if by just keeping the keys you can like just update pacman like in a year or two. Like imagine a machine with just the systemd service to update the keyring: It's possible that in that scenario pacman can update until latest release ? or there is a chance of breaking the system ?

seth · 2026-04-16 20:11:04

keeping the keys you can like just update pacman like in a year or two

Don't conduct partial updates. If you stall updates for a long time you *might* still have to run incremental updates to follow package movements and will run into all the news items of that period at once but typically can just "pacman -Syu" after 6 months or so w/o further hassle.

cryptearth · 2026-04-16 20:24:51

given i setup my current install on late august 2022 and since try to do an update at least once a day ... i still started to feel at least somewhat of the typical windows feeling: somehow this system desintegrate each day a bit more - and i actually did a topic about "should i just...?"
don't get me wrong - i'm impressed by the skills of some people gere getting systems back in a working state where i would have already thrown it - but this goes years back to when i got my first secondary harddrive (and then later my first external one) to keep data even accross re-installs of the OS
since the primary drive of my systems was always setup in a "fire and forget" kinda way: if the OS acted up strangely or the OS drive failed ... pff, who cares - replace if required - do a fresh clean install of the OS - and just continue as if nohin had happened
it's the reason why i'm against OS on raid: not just requires it a way more complicated setup but most even modern conumer and most prosumer hardware still can boot only from one regular drive anyway - so if you want to setup your OS even on simple mirror you have to do it in a way your bios can still boot even when the primary drive fails
in my setup i have my os drive as first option and pxe as second - and i already had the one case when my primary nvme experienced issues
yes, it does contain /home - but only to have it available; it pretty much holds only loseable data like caches or default target for downloads - anything critical is on a zfs pool - which itself also survived a critical multi-drive failure

so, you see - for a "homelab"-kinda guy my system is more fault tolerant than what we see on most youtube channels - and hence for me such question don't even come up - as my solution is: i have a x86 single-board-computer as my "home-'server'" (could be arm or risc-v) which has pxe and all the required network stuff in place - and if my main rig has issues i can always boot several recovery environments via network even on diskless thin-clients

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-14 11:47:17

How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#2 2026-04-14 12:06:46

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#3 2026-04-14 20:27:45

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#4 2026-04-14 20:50:56

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#5 2026-04-15 03:46:41

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#6 2026-04-15 10:12:02

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#7 2026-04-16 12:12:10

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#8 2026-04-16 15:18:58

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#9 2026-04-16 15:43:47

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#10 2026-04-16 17:34:04

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#11 2026-04-16 19:30:57

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#12 2026-04-16 20:03:29

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#13 2026-04-16 20:11:04

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

#14 2026-04-16 20:24:51

Re: How much does last an arch linux iso correctly ?

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