System Upgrade Frequency

ozar · 2005-06-15 18:53:36

Hey, everybody... I'm just curious and would like to know how often the rest of you are running pacman -Syu to upgrade your ArchLinux systems?

I've been upgrading every 3 or 4 days trying to stay current, but would be interested in cutting that back some. Does the upgrade frequency really make any difference, or can waiting too long between upgrades cause problems?

Thanks in advance for your opinions on this.

Dusty · 2005-06-15 19:09:12

I run it whenever I get bored, probably once a day or so. If I happen to be busy for a long stretch of time, I run it when I see a package I want updated on the front page.

Dusty

deficite · 2005-06-15 19:12:33

I probably run it about once or twice a week.

Snowman · 2005-06-15 19:58:33

I am running it once a day because I have a slow connection. Also, in the case that a new package breaks something, it's easier to figure out wich one is the culprit as the list of new packages is smaller.

T-Dawg · 2005-06-15 20:20:16

I run it once a day too. Like snowman said, its easier to narrow down a broken package that way. You can easily downgrade anyway using --upgrade switch:

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/<pkgname>.pkg.tar.gz

Gullible Jones · 2005-06-15 20:39:22

Once a day, unless there's a really massive upgrade that I don't feel bothered to deal with at the moment.

codergeek42 · 2005-06-15 21:20:22

I sync+update my Gentoo every weekend and reboot into Arch and update that weekly as well.

T-Dawg · 2005-06-15 21:25:40

codergeek42 wrote:

I sync+update my Gentoo every weekend and reboot into Arch and update that weekly as well.

And how long will it take for you to make the switch to arch?

codergeek42 · 2005-06-15 22:13:57

Penguin wrote:

codergeek42 wrote:
I sync+update my Gentoo every weekend and reboot into Arch and update that weekly as well.
And how long will it take for you to make the switch to arch?

I already do use Arch.

phrakture · 2005-06-15 22:57:58

I upgrade once to twice a day... sometimes I'm at a loss for something to do and I cycle to my "root" screen window and just run it for kicks...

ozar · 2005-06-16 01:06:21

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I especially like the suggestion about the ease in finding the offending files with very frequent upgrades.

encelo · 2005-06-16 02:06:26

Once per day (or more ) is a must for every serious archer!

Michel · 2005-06-16 11:34:00

Heya,

I don't know exactly how much time there was between one of my latest updates. I think it was more than a week I think, because for one of the latest updates I downloaded 500-600 MB. I think it was a couple of weeks, but I'm not sure. Sometimes I update quickly, sometimes I wait for a longer period.

I waited so long the last time, because the latest kde was compiled with gcc 3.4. I remembered that the C or C++ libraries changed between these versions, so I was afraid that kde won't run decently since I have gcc 4.x installed myself. Now, I'm not sure if it is ok, because he last time I loaded kde, there were no borders around my windows ... must check again (don't use kde at the moment). If there is a difficulty upgrading between packages it is listed in a thead on the front-page/the newsletter, ... ofcourse one have to check them (on time).

However everything seems to work at the moment (should check kde again). I don't want to say something about it to quickly ... but my system seems more stabel since the latest update. I think that earlier the Xserver crashed. I don't know if a bug has been fixed or because I enabled the new autohinter (which may be not completely related to the Xserver I think, more to the font-server). So, maybe it wasn't the server.

Anyway, it is possible that you can wait between updating for quite some time .. ofcourse it is more secure to update quicker. I think updating more frequently is better.

greetz,

Michel

neotuli · 2005-06-16 23:38:41

Usually, I'm like anyone else, a couple times a day, whenever I get bored. That pacman chomp patch even makes it fun to watch.
When I'm busy, with schoolwork and real life or whatever, I usually don't do it at all, since I wouldn't have the time to deal with the consequences of a messy upgrade, and need a working system.

kakabaratruskia · 2005-06-17 00:16:41

Dusty wrote:

I run it whenever I get bored, probably once a day or so.

heh, you read my mind...

Meshuggin · 2005-06-17 01:45:45

Every 2-3 days, that's enough for me

elasticdog · 2005-06-17 03:37:32

I'm with Dusty as well...about once a day, but mostly just when I get bored and happen to think about it.

neotuli · 2005-06-17 03:47:46

Hey you guys, I've got a little scripting challenge for someone.

Write a simple, elegant script that parses your /var/log/pacman.log for full system upgrades and when they occured, then create a daily average based on that.

REAdy..... SET.......GO!!

keevn7 · 2005-06-17 04:39:26

I run it once a day or so, depending on if I am on my computer or not and how much I care.

cactus · 2005-06-17 06:52:22

echo -e $(((((`head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log | awk -F / '{print $1}' | tr -d "["` * 30) - `head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log | awk -F / '{print $2}'`)+(((`tail -n1 /var/log/pacman.log | awk -F / '{print $1}'| tr -d "["`-`head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log | awk -F / '{print $1}' | tr -d "["`)*30)+ `tail -n1 /var/log/pacman.log | awk -F / '{print $2}'`))))"n"`grep -c "starting full system upgrade" /var/log/pacman.log` | xargs perl -le '$a=$ARGV[0];$b=$ARGV[1];$n=$a/$b;print "very approximately $n runs per day";'

lol! obfuscaded cli!!

I get

very approximately 0.973684210526316 runs per day

neotuli · 2005-06-17 06:59:47

An ugly combo of bash and perl (I found out exactly how shitty bash's arithmetic handling is in the process....), here is the script, so now we can all happily get empirical values for our pacman -Syu'ing addiction.

#!/usr/bin/perl
$days = `datemath "(`tail -n 1 /var/log/pacman.log | cut -b 2-9`-`head -n 1 /var/log/pacman.log | cut -b 2-9`)"`;
$syus = `grep -c 'starting full system upgrade' /var/log/pacman.log`;
print $syus/$days;
print " pacman -Syu per dayn";

Thanks to paranoos for bringing datemath to my attention. A lot of you probably don't have it on your systems...it's in [community].

So here's mine:

0.784431137724551 pacman -Syu per day

:shock: Less than one?!

paranoos · 2005-06-17 15:40:27

you're welcome, neo.

i got around 0.783 ... lol i was surprised to find that i've been running Arch for almost a year! wow.

and actually, you should be doing "datemath today - `head -1 /var/log/pacman.log | cut -c2-9`" ... makes it a bit simpler... and more accurate -- what if you didn't sysupgrade today?

libervisco · 2005-06-17 17:43:14

How often do I update? Hmm.. I am on dial up (and stuck with it) so i got arch full CD from my CD vendor (0.7 Wombat), installed that. So all updates that i've done were if they were dependancies for some stuff i pacmanized from the net (such as KDE and GNOME). For example, GCC is updated to the latest version.

Now, when i issue the 'pacman -Syu' command there is 230MB to download. Whoa! Only for some 15 MB it takes almost an hour. So, according to this, to pacmanize 230 MB it would take me 15 hours to get it done! It's so much that once i'm done with that update, another will be due.

So, what do you suggest for me or any other strayed fellow dial up "stuckers"?

I guess i could do it selectively.. maybe start every day for a couple of hours and get it done in a week. And then once i get that size to something reasonable update every day, even twice a day maybe, which could be bareable on modem?

Those of you who update daily, how much MB's you have to download every day for that?

Thank you and, despite this dial up issue i'm finding arch to be the perfect combination for me. I'm coming from slackware.

Daniel

iBertus · 2005-06-17 18:16:23

neo: i get errors when trying to run this script.

cut: option requires an argument -- b
Try `cut --help' for more information.
sh: line 2: 2-9: command not found
datemath: syntax error in command line: syntax error
Illegal division by zero at /root/how-many-times.pl line 5.

With the cactus version I get the following:

very approximately 5.375 runs per day

I really didn't think I -Syu'd that much! I guess maybe I do it and don't remember?!

cactus · 2005-06-17 18:28:01

lol iBertus. My script only works if the first date in the log file is the same year as the last date in the log file. It doesnt work well across years.
And..it assumes 30 days in a month as average. That is why it reports, "very approximately"

Arch Linux

#1 2005-06-15 18:53:36

System Upgrade Frequency

#2 2005-06-15 19:09:12

Re: System Upgrade Frequency

#3 2005-06-15 19:12:33

Re: System Upgrade Frequency

#4 2005-06-15 19:58:33

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#5 2005-06-15 20:20:16

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#6 2005-06-15 20:39:22

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