Can i keep the pacnew file instead of the old one?

hello
i just got a pacnew homed.conf file.
there is nothing major,just some commented instruction better phrased.
the only important difference between the two is the file system;ext4 vs btrfs.
can i just replace in the pacnew file this section(put ext4),delete the old file and rename the pacnew to be homed.conf?
i wasn’t sure since it’s a running session and the system might need an active homed.conf file while i do this change.

You can do that manually but there are tools to manage the pacnew files, pacdiff being the most known I think. I use it, and it is easy this way pacman/Pacnew and Pacsave - ArchWiki

If it is a config file for something you do not use you can replace the old config with the new one but if you use systemd homed then make sure the changes you apply are correct to your system.

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i have no idea if I’m(the os)is currently using homed.conf.
i usually compare with meld,edit with nano the old one and delete the new one.
this time it would have been easier to edit the new one,delete the old one and rename the new one.
but I’m not sure if that’s OK since it might be currently used.
i hope i was clear.

Only you can now what is in use in your system so you have to find out. I don’t think this is used by default in any Manjaro ISO, I could be wrong but systemd-homed is something you have to enable yourself.

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If you don’t know, then you’re not using it. By default, systemd-homed is not used in either Manjaro or Arch, and its configuration ─ if desired ─ is left up to the user. There is ample documentation on how to set it up, but in Manjaro, it is non-functional by default.

You may safely remove the .pacnew file. :wink:

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thanks for the clarification for this specific file,
what i was trying to explain is that sometimes it’s easier to keep the pacnew file instead of editing the old one,so about knowing if it’s currently(actively) being used by the system;
unless there is a command line that verifies that, how can i possible know if one of the thousands system files is being used right now by some process.(like in widows when trying to delete or modify a file,it says you can’t since it’s currently being used).
so my concern was that for that brief moment that the system would not have this .conf file something might break.
or maybe with pacnew files as they’re always? .conf files it’s something else?
I’m not sure i’m being understood.

.pacnew files are never that plentiful during an update. You’ll get at most four or five, depending on what you’ve got installed ─ unless of course you’ve got a couple of .pacnew files lingering that you still haven’t tended to ─ and .pacnew files are themselves never in use. They are intended to be merged with existing configuration files.

As for whether something is in use or not, you can try the following in a terminal… :arrow_down:

ps -aux | grep -i NAME_OF_THE_THING | grep -v grep

If you get any output from that command, then it’s in use, but then it’s still a question of what exactly “it” is. If it’s a daemon ─ i.e. a background process ─ then the configuration file is generally loaded only when the daemon is started, and then the daemon can be told to reload its configuration. So in that case, editing the configuration file won’t have any effect until the daemon is told to reload its configuration.

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that’s what i was trying to understand :slight_smile:
Thanks a lot.

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