Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

Soupstuffs · 2011-07-25 23:01:34

Hi all,

I have been a deadbeat dad to my arch system for the past year or so, and now the poor thing has some pretty big problems. I am wondering weather to abort it or not. I have all my files that I want to keep in my /data partition (except configs, but I can always send them over into a new folder) so I'm not worried about losing any information, but it scares the hell out of me to actually go through with a new install because, well, I'm an idiot and always tend to mess crap up.

Can I reinstall without losing my data partition, how do I do it, and is it advisable to do that in most situations? All I know is that my Mencoder is messed up, my browsers glitch out, and I'm losing my connection with screen, MPD, etc quite frequently these days.

Thanks for the advice,
Poopstuffs

karol · 2011-07-25 23:06:52

Is your system up to date? If not, try to update it, maybe the problems will fix themselves.

gregor · 2011-07-25 23:11:40

try uninstall it first with "sudo pacman -Rs mencoder" ,and re-install it back with "pacman -Syy mencoder" and see what happens...

Last edited by gregor (2011-07-25 23:14:24)

karol · 2011-07-25 23:16:49

gregor wrote:

re-install it back with "pacman -Syy mencoder" and see what happens...

If OP has got old package databases ''pacman -Syy mencoder' won't do much good. Arch doesn't like being updated one package at a time.

Last edited by karol (2011-07-25 23:17:45)

gregor · 2011-07-25 23:20:42

oH/?

Soupstuffs · 2011-07-25 23:29:19

I've tried reinstalling all my packages. They're all now supposedly up to date, and I even use that old script that uninstalls then reinstalls everything. I think it may be a configuration issue, but I can't figure it out. I've spent a lot more time trying to fix these problems than I did installing (and configuring) arch in the first place.

If there is a way to get everything working again, that would be awesome but at this point I bet it would be faster to just reinstall.

ANOKNUSA · 2011-07-25 23:31:02

gregor wrote:

try uninstall it first with # pacman -Rs mencoder ,and re-install it back with # pacman -Sy mencoder and see what happens

After going for a long stretch, installing anything with pacman -Sy would be an even worse idea than it already is. It's always best to update pacman databases with pacman -Syy, then install packages, so as to avoid potential version conflicts. If you've gone more than a couple months without updating the system, I'd recommend backing up your /home folder and following the wiki instructions on creating a list of installed packages, then reinstalling using the resulting text file. You'll have the same system (minus AUR packages), and be up-to-date. It's also important to note that over the last several months there have been some changes to the core system, namely the new rc.d script, a new rc.conf file, new networking parameters, etc. That could be too much to cope with for one upgrade.

karol · 2011-07-25 23:38:24

ANOKNUSA wrote:

It's also important to note that over the last several months there have been some changes to the core system, namely the new rc.d script, a new rc.conf file, new networking parameters, etc. That could be too much to cope with for one upgrade.

OP says his system should be up to date now, so hopefully he merged all the .pacnew files and did the necessary changes to the config files he wants to save.

@Soupstuffs
You can use the new isos https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … s_feedback if you want or even save your downloaded packages somewhere.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-25 23:01:34

Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#2 2011-07-25 23:06:52

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#3 2011-07-25 23:11:40

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#4 2011-07-25 23:16:49

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#5 2011-07-25 23:20:42

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#6 2011-07-25 23:29:19

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#7 2011-07-25 23:31:02

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

#8 2011-07-25 23:38:24

Re: Reinstalling Arch Linux - Advice?

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