pacman -Syu question [Solved]

vinoman2 · 2009-06-10 22:54:22

when doing an upgrade with:
# pacman -Syu

and it says it's going to be 142MB. Is that adding additional 142MB or is it just upgrading the exisiting programs and just making the upgrade without taking up more space in the / directory?

Last edited by vinoman2 (2009-06-11 02:30:12)

Peasantoid · 2009-06-10 22:59:32

It won't take up any more space unless the size of the new packages is greater than that of the old ones.

vinoman2 · 2009-06-10 23:05:44

Peasantoid wrote:

It won't take up any more space unless the size of the new packages is greater than that of the old ones.

here's my df:

[davek@myhost ~]$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 7566432 3589152 3592928 50% /
none 1037040 0 1037040 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4 30597264 856456 28186520 3% /home
/dev/sda1 38888 9195 27685 25% /boot
[davek@myhost ~]$

seems like sda3 has filled up fast. I wanted to add some more programs but it looks like I should resize the / directory. What do you think?

Xyne · 2009-06-10 23:40:00

Are you clearing out your cache? Look at the pacman man page, under the sync option section for more information.
If you have the space for it, I would recommend keeping a copy of each installed package in the cache* so that you can always roll back if an update breaks something ("pacman -Sc" will do this).
[edit]
* and removing all others
[/edit]

Clearing the cache will only free up so much space though. I would agree that you should resize your root partition. In your case I would probably double it but it depends on what you intend to install, what you're doing with /var and /tmp and how much space you want to devote to /home. If you have a way to back up /home on another disk, it might even be a good idea to combine / and /home to avoid the partitioning curse of too much or too little.

Last edited by Xyne (2009-06-10 23:41:05)

Peasantoid · 2009-06-10 23:44:14

If you don't want to roll anything back (you can use the Arch Rollback Machine for this purpose), `pacman -Scc` will clean the entire cache. Only do this if you are very, very sure.

Xyne · 2009-06-10 23:47:24

Just be careful though... "pacman -Sccc" deletes the entire internet. A little known fact is that that's how Judd burst the dotcom bubble when first testing pacman.

vinoman2 · 2009-06-10 23:53:25

Xyne wrote:

Are you clearing out your cache? Look at the pacman man page, under the sync option section for more information.
If you have the space for it, I would recommend keeping a copy of each installed package in the cache* so that you can always roll back if an update breaks something ("pacman -Sc" will do this).
[edit]
* and removing all others
[/edit]
Clearing the cache will only free up so much space though. I would agree that you should resize your root partition. In your case I would probably double it but it depends on what you intend to install, what you're doing with /var and /tmp and how much space you want to devote to /home. If you have a way to back up /home on another disk, it might even be a good idea to combine / and /home to avoid the partitioning curse of too much or too little.

Since I'm new with Arch (2 weeks) I let the install set up some standard partitions. This is on a test box that I use to try different distros, so I don't have anything to backup at this time. And I like Arch so it will stay on this 40GB hdd.

Is cfdisk the favorite partitioning program? I've used Gparted before. Do I need to run it from a live CD?

Last edited by vinoman2 (2009-06-11 00:03:25)

Xyne · 2009-06-11 00:17:06

I think cfdisk just happens to be what's on the live CD, probably due to its being simple and reliable. Afaik you can't use cfdisk to resize an existing partition without destroying it as you can with gparted. I use lvm though so I've never needed to resize a physical partition. Someone else will be able to clarify this. You might want to do a quick forum search for relevant threads as I've seen several in which resizing partitions was discussed, often with recommendations for gparted. I actually have no idea if it's included on the live CD but you should be able to download it with pacman if it's not.*

[edit]
*meaning, download it while running the live CD and install it in the live CD environment
[/edit]

Last edited by Xyne (2009-06-11 00:18:35)

vinoman2 · 2009-06-11 00:30:04

Xyne wrote:

I think cfdisk just happens to be what's on the live CD, probably due to its being simple and reliable. Afaik you can't use cfdisk to resize an existing partition without destroying it as you can with gparted. I use lvm though so I've never needed to resize a physical partition. Someone else will be able to clarify this. You might want to do a quick forum search for relevant threads as I've seen several in which resizing partitions was discussed, often with recommendations for gparted. I actually have no idea if it's included on the live CD but you should be able to download it with pacman if it's not.*
[edit]
*meaning, download it while running the live CD and install it in the live CD environment
[/edit]

I was thinking of the Parted magic live CD: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05469

vinoman2 · 2009-06-11 02:29:44

I ran Parted magic 4.1 and everything went smoothly...

here's my df now:
[davek@myhost ~]$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 14769568 3581096 10438244 26% /
none 1037040 0 1037040 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4 23394568 858624 21347540 4% /home
/dev/sda1 38888 9195 27685 25% /boot
[davek@myhost ~]$

now the / partition is twice as big as before.

Problem solved!

Peasantoid · 2009-06-11 02:32:12

Xyne wrote:

Just be careful though... "pacman -Sccc" deletes the entire internet. A little known fact is that that's how Judd burst the dotcom bubble when first testing pacman.

Awesome! I'ma go run that now.

tlaloc · 2009-06-11 02:44:46

Xyne wrote:

Just be careful though... "pacman -Sccc" deletes the entire internet. A little known fact is that that's how Judd burst the dotcom bubble when first testing pacman.

Ohhh - now I know. It is four o'clock in the morning over here, but I think this one really saved my day ...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-10 22:54:22

pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#2 2009-06-10 22:59:32

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#3 2009-06-10 23:05:44

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#4 2009-06-10 23:40:00

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#5 2009-06-10 23:44:14

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#6 2009-06-10 23:47:24

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#7 2009-06-10 23:53:25

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#8 2009-06-11 00:17:06

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#9 2009-06-11 00:30:04

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#10 2009-06-11 02:29:44

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#11 2009-06-11 02:32:12

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

#12 2009-06-11 02:44:46

Re: pacman -Syu question [Solved]

Board footer