Help with pacnew handling

Support
1

I missed the last update…is it safe to just update now and thus skip the update from 2025-05-19? Or should I take precautions/do something else first?

I am a bit overchallenged with .pacnew handling (I still have quite a lot of them :frowning: ) and wanted to take time to get more into it before applying the latest update, that’s why I did not manage to do the update from before, yet…

I still have the passwd.pacnew from december in my /etc folder… should I merge that one before doing the latest updates - to avoid having two pacnews for passwd xD? Or manually apply the changes in the first line (with nano, I guess…I have no routine in doing this, but I will try to find out how to do it…)?

Thanks in advance for any help…I know it must be annoying to get stupid questions by amateur-users and I really appreciate every advice!
(I have no development skills at all and I am just learning everything from scratch still, although I have been using manjaro for almost 8 years now…)

2

There is a link to how to manage .pacnew files in the second post, near the top.

I’d suggest using meld which is a good two-pane file comparator but you will probably need to install that — and that means updating your system.

You could, of course, use nano but this will be more involved.

I’m not sure you’d get a second .pacnew but this can be handled if it happens.

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3

I’m not sure but I think diffuse is installed by default. And Plasma users can install kompare.

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4

But aren’t both manjaro-pacnew-checker and pacnew-chaser configured to work only with meld, or rather, to pass to meld? Likewise, the command DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s isn’t there a way to simply change that to DIFFPROG=kompare pacdiff -s? How do you achieve the same thing with kompare?

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5

I have read notes/warnings in the past (like this one from @Aragorn) that -Syuu -Syyu is not the way to go but you should rather always use:

sudo pacman -Syu
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6

manjaro-pacnew-checker probably is, but on my system, pacnew-chaser invokes diffuse. Which is strange, because I have… :point_down:

DIFFPROG=/usr/bin/kompare

… in /etc/environment. :man_shrugging:

That’s a good question. I haven’t messed with the .desktop file yet, but perhaps it could be added there. :thinking:

Note that you misread @FreddyX’s post. He was talking of -Syyu, while you are talking of Syuu. :stuck_out_tongue:

Those options are very different, but they both do exist for a reason. The idea, then, is of course to use them when necessary only. :wink: :point_down:

  • For regular updates, use -Syu.

  • If you decide to switch branches — e.g. from Stable to Testing or Unstable, or in the other direction — then you should use -Syyu, which will refresh all databases even if they are up-to-date. It also used to be recommended in the event of refreshing the mirrors, but that is no longer the case. It is either way not recommended for regular package updates because it will put an extra load on the servers.

  • If there are any packages which for whatever reason have been downgraded again — for instance because a package with a newer version was erroneously pushed from Testing to Stable and was then pulled again — then you would use -Syuu, which allows for downgrading.

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7

We both updated using pamac-manager (the GUI). I continued working, and did experience some slowdowns, my partner left her machine and did other things. Neither of us experienced any issues during or after the update.

This is what should happen, with a well developed package manager, and System.

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8

I just changed my response to … Yes I have an isssue.

The update clobbered my personal KWallet file. It’s now empty. That’s the file that has ALL my passwords, and other stored data.

I may not be able to recover, as unbeknownst to me the Disk I was backing Timeshift to has failed. It won’t mount, and I don’t know how long it’s been like this, as that’s all it gets/got used for, and I never as a rule access it., but It looks like I can’t recover my backed up Kwallet file.

::scream::: ::Rant:: ::Footstamp:: ::Lots of Swearing::

Cancel all of that.

That was weird. I shut down Kwallet, and reopened it, and suddenly all my password etc are back. I have no idea what just happened. When I looked in the kwalletd directory in my .local directory the Tracy_Wallet file was empty, but there were a bunch of other Tracy_Wallet files, so they may have been some sort of backup that got restored, the second time I opened Kwallet Manager.

So I’ll change my response back to no issues.

However I now need to do something about the disk I use for Timeshift. Quickly.

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9

Damn right. I did the absolute same. Why not live adventurously, no? I mean…WHY WAIT! :rofl:

10

Full Update through the GUI Pacman Updater with no issues.
Would note I was getting some weird kwallet errors with my VPN from the last stable update, was asking for password at each login which I had not seen in the past. With latest stable update, it appears to have gone away

11

That’s pamac, not pacman. pacman is a command-line-only tool. :wink:

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12

I sense a slight misunderstanding here.

When there is/has been some time between the announced updates,
you cannot do all the past ones incrementally.

The only thing you can do is:
update from your current state to the most recent.
There are no in between steps.

I suspect you think in terms of update bundles like in Windows, which need to be applied incrementally - lose that thought, that’s not the case here.

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13

To get back to the original issue at hand:
My recommendation would be to fix the .pacnew-situation and then do the update.
To do the merge, using DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s proved to be the easiest in my case.
I assume you won’t have much to merge in most of the .pacnew-files. So a good strategy could be to skip anything that seems complicated in the first run and start with the easy ones. You’ll gather some experience :blush:
Then afterwards, you can go back to the more complicated ones in a second round.

And of course if you are not sure there is always the internet and the forum here to get help for specific questions.

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14

Is there anything other than pacdiff out there?

$ DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s
zsh: command not found: pacdiff

$ sudo pacman -Sy pacdiff
:: Synchronising package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 multilib is up to date
error: target not found: pacdiff
15

You can always do the comparison yourself - visually.
Just put the two files side by side …

diff is another way to show … the differences.

The program pacdiff, which you are missing, is part of the package:
extra/pacman-contrib

sudo pacman -Syu pacman-contrib

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16

Thank you!

17

To find out which package contains a program which you want or need but do not have installed:
pacman -F name_of_program

here is what I did to find out the answer to your question, including the response:

pacman -F pacdiff
extra/pacman-contrib 1.11.0-1
    usr/bin/pacdiff
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18

Thank you for the advice! Sorry to ask again…but what exactly does the DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s command do? does it find the pacnew files (like pacdiff -f) and then give me the option, to merge, skip or quit?

In case of the passwd.pacnew I already compared visually and I know that the .pacnew contains only an altered first line and nothing else…so I was guessing, that merging would replace that line which has been altered and leave the rest of the original passwd file untouched…just as if I would manipulate the original file manually to make the first line match the .pacnew…is that a correct assumption? Or did i misinterpret the “merging” process?

(I know, my questions are very basic…I am really trying to understand, but it is quite complicated​:upside_down_face::laughing:)

19

Did you try? :grin:
You can always just look and then cancel if you are not sure.
You can also first make a backup copy of the original, before you “go to work” - and restore from that copy if need be.

That is a correct assumption.
The resulting updated content of the (in this case: /etc/passwd) is the only important thing.

It’s as easy (or, as you see it, complicated) as that.

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20

It’s just a typo on my end. I was in fact talking about -Syyu because that’s what I searched for in the forum search. In your quoted post you’re also mentioning -Syyu

What I don’t get is, why @Yochanan split my post off to this pacnew’s topic. It’s a direct response to FreddyX’s post where he advised for using -Syyu in ‘normal update’ capacity. His posting hasn’t been split off which leaves my post in a limbo answering to a post somewhere else. No big deal, just wondering why. :wink:

EDIT

Doesn’t the scenario of switching branch from Testing/Unstable to Stable also apply here? You switch back to ‘stable’ but have newer ‘Testing’ packages installed and pacman puts out a warning. Therefore you have to downgrade the packages with -Syuu. That’s at least what I remember reading somewhere.

EDIT2
Found it. Read it in the manjaro wiki for pacman.