I’m thinking that this single line is intended to replace the first line in my existing passwd file. Should I imply edit that file with the pacnew update, and then delete the passwd.pacnew file?
Any guidance, helps with the others would also be appreciated.
Yes.
Although it doesn’t make a difference in most cases whether you make this change or not.
/bin is a symlink to /usr/bin - which is the real directory
Then that’s the only line you have to change in your existing /etc/passwd.
Yes, indeed.
This one needs attending too.
This one too.
And this one too.
I don’t know about the others. Sometimes the changes are only commented-out lines. Use common sense.
If it pertains to actual settings — as opposed to the aforementioned commented-out lines — and they are not settings that you yourself have customized for reasons of your own, then you should implement the new settings.
While this is true, the change is actually because of the planned move away from the legacy paths referencing /bin, /sbin and /lib, given that most distributions — and especially so Arch and Manjaro — are now using the equivalents of those directories under the /usr hierarchy, with /usr/sbin actually also being a link to /usr/bin.
Ha! Well, I did the passwd file change, rebooted, and all is well. And now I’m laughing because I think that’ll probably end up being the easiest of the files to manage.
Many of the changes are to commented-out text which is replaced or added to by other commented out text. The one major line I’m concerned with now is the HOOKS setting:
keep the existing version - the .pacnew is the default without adaptations to your system
especially the “encrypt” HOOK and the FILES … is presumably needed and isn’t present in the default
the plymouth is for the boot animation which would be gone when it was not present anymore
Thank you. One question about mkinitcpio.conf, I don’t currently have the microcode hook. Is that any cause for concern? I see occasional AMD microcode updates come through and always assumed there were applied.
There was a change in how the microcode is loaded. It is now included in the initramfs itself, and as such, you do need that hook now. It should be placed right behind autodetect.
After editing and saving the file, you should then run…
If they are not in the .pacnew file, then you don’t need them. Unless you have added custom repositories to your pacman configuration, you should be able to just overwrite the old /etc/pacman.conf file with /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew.
For example, here’s my /etc/pacman.conf file (note that I don’t use the multilib repo - I don’t have any 32-bit stuff on my PC):
#
# /etc/pacman.conf
#
# See the pacman.conf(5) manpage for option and repository directives
#
# GENERAL OPTIONS
#
[options]
# The following paths are commented out with their default values listed.
# If you wish to use different paths, uncomment and update the paths.
#RootDir = /
#DBPath = /var/lib/pacman/
#CacheDir = /var/cache/pacman/pkg/
#LogFile = /var/log/pacman.log
#GPGDir = /etc/pacman.d/gnupg/
#HookDir = /etc/pacman.d/hooks/
HoldPkg = pacman glibc manjaro-system
#XferCommand = /usr/bin/curl -L -C - -f -o %o %u
#XferCommand = /usr/bin/wget --passive-ftp -c -O %o %u
#CleanMethod = KeepInstalled
Architecture = auto
#IgnorePkg =
#IgnorePkg =
#IgnoreGroup =
#NoUpgrade =
#NoExtract =
# Misc options
#UseSyslog
Color
#NoProgressBar
CheckSpace
#VerbosePkgLists
ParallelDownloads = 4
DownloadUser = alpm
#DisableSandbox
#ILoveCandy
# By default, pacman accepts packages signed by keys that its local keyring
# trusts (see pacman-key and its man page), as well as unsigned packages.
SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional
LocalFileSigLevel = Optional
#RemoteFileSigLevel = Required
# NOTE: You must run `pacman-key --init` before first using pacman; the local
# keyring can then be populated with the keys of all official Arch and Manjaro Linux
# packagers with `pacman-key --populate archlinux manjaro`.
#
# REPOSITORIES
# - can be defined here or included from another file
# - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here
# - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files
# - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages
# have identical names, regardless of version number
# - URLs will have $repo replaced by the name of the current repo
# - URLs will have $arch replaced by the name of the architecture
#
# Repository entries are of the format:
# [repo-name]
# Server = ServerName
# Include = IncludePath
#
# The header [repo-name] is crucial - it must be present and
# uncommented to enable the repo.
#
[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# If you want to run 32 bit applications on your x86_64 system,
# enable the multilib repositories as required here.
#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# An example of a custom package repository. See the pacman manpage for
# tips on creating your own repositories.
#[custom]
#SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
#Server = file:///home/custompkgs
