Pamac feature requests

I heard somewhere that pamac is considered to replace pacman entirely. If those rumors are true, then it’s a bad decision because I still use pacman when pamac fails to satisfy things.

Here are the list of requests I see necessary for the pamac:

  1. Be able to update a specific package from CLI.
    There is no such option. And when I googled it, I saw people saying that it could break something. Still, that would be great to have that feature, which will also warn about potential risks. With double confirmation if necessary.
  2. Why on god’s green earth this package manager downloads huge packages anew when updating the system? For example android-studio. It’s huge. And when you update the system, and it fails at some step, when you try update again it starts fresh download of android-studio, and other huge packages. For example davinci-resolve is also 6 to 7 gigabytes large. Why? Why it can’t use cached files or something? It is really inconvenient, and you waste a ton of time on a task such as system upgrade. Just because you have to download 10 gigabytes of files three of four times just because updates were failed because of some signature cannot be verified. Speaking of which.
  3. Why it can’t give you options to verify the signature it doesn’t trust and just fails the entire upgrade process? Where you have to redownload all the packages again as I mentioned before? Why it doesn’t give you any options, or at least prints in the console a signature to verify?
  4. And finally. Why, if you have to upgrade like 500 packages, you have to start anew for many of those if one single package failed to be upgraded? Why can’t we skip it? Why there is no such option?

Because of all that system upgrades via pamac is really tedious and annoying task which consumes a lot of precious time.

Hi @Xeizzeth,

I don’t have answers to all your questions, but I can tell you that updating a specific package isn’t supported because it can result in a partially upgraded, and thus unsupported, state.

Cached from where? Your PC? How did it get there? Magic?

It has to download it before it can get cached. And remember, Manjaro doesn’t control the AUR or packages offered there. So when you use it, you’re on your own and subject to the whims of the package maintainer.

One specific package (A) may rely on functionality from another package (B) which has also been updated but if you only sync package (A) your system is only partitally synced and this may create hard to solve issues.

This is a custom package installed from AUR. Omit the -a or exclude AUR build when running the update.

pamac update --no-aur

There is a much better option to install and maintain android stuido using JetBrains Toolbox App: Manage Your Tools with Ease

Sync from official repo downloads to and installs from the cache located in /var/cache/pacman/pkg.

When it is a custom package the installation follows the PKGBUILD script which has no knowledge of which files has been fetched or not.

As for the signature - there is no way the system can decide if the signature should be trusted or not.

Signature issues only occurs with AUR PKGBUILD or poorly maintained systems where the keyring is outdated.

That is normal when you sync both repo and aur in the same command - don’t sync them together - see above.

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pamac is already favored since it is developed by the Manjaro team, but pacman won’t go away.

I’m talking about it downloading a package multiple times. Like three or four times you try to update the system. Once is enough.

I’m aware of that. But still, there should be such an option with leaving the responsibility for the owner of the system.

Looks like I have to use it next time. But still, if you download something once, you should not have to download it again.

Ok. Then again, this issue needs to be solved instead of telling “aaah, that’s what it is” and leaving everything as is.
Your suggestions from this point onward?

Therefore, like I said, it should be user’s responsibility whether to trust or not.

Thanks for the link. If it’s very handy I think it should be present at each system update for user to see.
I mean each time next huge load of updates will be delivered in notifications.

That’s good news then. Thank you.

And thank you guys for your responses and keeping them civil.

This specific point is what it is. AUR PKGBILD is a script - that script is what it is - and has nothing to do with Manjaro sync process in general.

It resolves when you stop updating repo and aur in same command.

Maintaining android studio using the toolbox mentioned is a breeze compared to a failed build script.

one "related " think. Is LVFS supported on pamac?
If not, it would be good to see it been supported… in a “automatic” way I think.

fwupd is in our repositories and uses LVFS to update firmware, but not all devices support that.

It is not yet supported no, but there is an old feature request for this in the source repository:

+1 for this. I think nowadays lvfs should be supported in a “graphical” way in an automatic way

I mean, some pop up that shows you that you can update