Pacman GUI: how to disable system updates along with app installs?

Support
1

hi!

i just installed manjaro xfce (im an ex-mint-user). right away i went to the add/remove software which is this nice looking list of things i want to install.

i need right now to install vivaldi and 2 of its packages.

i browse vivaldi, there they are, i select them and 3 new actions are awaiting to be applied. i hit apply and all these updates are listed. no, no! just the vivaldi packs, please. i went back and in the updates tab i see a huge list of things that will have to wait. i hit ignore all and after a while theyre all unmarked. i went back to the browse section, vivaldi packs are still marked. i hit apply and there we go, the entire list is still there. “maybe its just a list”, then i proceed and, no, 1gb of things i didint want are being downloaded instead of my few mb that vivaldi require.

is this broken or am i doing something wrong?

2

Welcome to the forum! :slight_smile:

You are doing something wrong. :stuck_out_tongue:

There was a major update today, and installing packages without updating your system leads to a partial upgrade situation and a broken system.

Manjaro is a curated rolling-release distribution. This means that you don’t get updates as frequently as in Arch ─ or at least, not if you’re on the Stable branch ─ because updates are thoroughly tested and bundled together. On average, there will be two major updates every month ─ there is no set time or date for this; it is ready when it’s ready ─ so you don’t have to update your system every day, but you do still have to keep your system up-to-date.

So if there is an update, then you are expected to install it. There will be a notifier icon in your system tray alerting you when an update is available, and there will also always be a thread in the #announcements category of the forum about every major update ─ be sure to subscribe to that category for notifications, and then there will be a marker next to your avatar at the top right of the page in your browser.

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3

well… this behavior kind of ruin that quick thing you need to do right away.

i guess ill have to think about a workaround.

thanks for the help!

4

Even when you only get (on average) two major updates every month? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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5

Not using a rolling release that will be constantly updated? A fixed release with rare updates seems more adapted to what you seek.

6

Right, it would appear that you’d prefer a system that just gets out of date - in which case Mint is a better option. You can have an old version of sofware and install individual packages at will.

This can be done with Manjaro - but when an update is pushed through, you should update before installing.

Otherwise, the system will end up broken… You’re expected to update regularly because it is a rolling distribution. The update took me 5 minutes…

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Don’t worry, that’s just the download size, not the net upgrade size. Run sudo pacman -Syu on a terminal, it’ll show 3 things, net download size, net installed size, and net upgrade size. The only thing you have to worry is if the net upgrade size is large, the other 2 don’t matter

8

Don’t push it, it’s nothing serious. It’s simple. You don’t constantly need more disk space every update, each update will take about 5 minutes at maximum. They are very thoroughly tested, it won’t break your system. Even if it does, the workaround will be quite easy.

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This upgrade for me was a NET increase of about 400MB. I started it last night when I went to bed, then (because everything downloaded - but it failed with no password) again this morning took 5 minutes to finish, open the ‘Kernel’ app, delete 5.11 and install 5.12 and reboot.
I still have the LTS kernel, so no worries about that… and 5.12 is sweet so far.

10

You could say that.

Manjaro is not Linux Mint and you should not treat it like Mint - doing so will very quickly lead to problems - and if you are not syncing your system - you are essentially making it unsupported as only fully synced systems is supported on Manjaro.

You are free to do what ever sync cycle you wish - but don’t expect understanding if you decide to do so - your choice.

Linux Mint is a fixed release model and Manjaro is rolling release.

It is crucial to your usage of Manjaro to understand that above difference.

You should never add another package to your system without sync’ of your current system.

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11

From your description it would appear that pamac-manager is working as intended to avoid a partial update

If pamac-manager allowed you to install only the latest package vivaldi the package might fail to install or fail to work if it does not have the latest versions of dependency packages
and 3 Vivaldi dependency packages were included in latest update – gtk3 , libcups , nss
and those 3 packages require a lot more dependency packages
so vivaldi may also need a lot of those 1GB of update packages

1 Like
12

We have all been avoiding the direct answer to the question - and now the discourage has been done - the answer is

Open Pamac Preferences dialog → Advanced → Do not check for updates when installing

It is your system - and it is your choice - just remember - there is a reason why partial sync is discouraged.

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