echo "0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com" >> /etc/hosts
echo "0.0.0.0 facebook.com" >> /etc/hosts
Problem solved!
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Off-topic:-
An oversight, I think, not to allow wildcards in the hosts file from itās very beginning. Something like 127.0.0.1 *.facebook.* would have been handy so many times.
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They were a fun 80ās band.
ā¦might be an obscure reference for non-Australiansā¦
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This is why I run my own DNS server using Unbound. It allows wildcards like that and as I also use a lot of blocklists from https://blocklist.sefinek.net/ to protect myself from advertising/tracking/malware/etc it avoids an unwieldy hosts file.
And by running a VPN server on my home server that my mobile connects to, I can get the same level of protection when Iām out of the house as well.
(Donāt try this at home using BIND, as that caches all of its zonefile in RAM, and with over 2M entries in mine, that made a huge dent in my systemās memory when I tried it).
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āif you fail to prepare you are preparing to failā
Comments in update announcements often show minimal reading or forethought
Manjaro stable branch is curated to reduce manual interventions by users, but some manual intervention will always be needed
Pamac updates repository packages before rebuilding AUR packages, so users do not need to remove AUR packages before updating stable branch packages
--unneeded is redundant and unnecessary for removing orphans, not ābest practiceā in my opinion
Even so - having AUR packages may interfere with regular packages - especially if there an overlap exist between the files provided.
Often - when package(s) are restructured - files may change owner (in terms of package providing the file) and may conflict between official repo and AUR.
orphan and unneeded are different per definition - the command removes both types - but one could also execute them separately - a matter of preference - the intent is to avoid downloading updates for packages present but unused.
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--unneeded option does not work if no [package(s),group(s)] is(are) specified
$ pamac remove --unneeded
Remove packages
pamac remove [options] [package(s),group(s)]
options:
--unneeded, -u : remove packages only if they are not required by any other packages
--cascade, -c : remove all target packages, as well as all packages that depend on one or more target packages
--orphans, -o : remove dependencies that are not required by other packages, if this option is used without package
name remove all orphans
--no-orphans : do not remove dependencies that are not required by other packages
--no-save, -n : ignore files backup
--dry-run, -d : only print what would be done but do not run the transaction
--no-confirm : bypass any and all confirmation messages
Pamac used to update repository and AUR packages at the same time, but repository packages are now updated before AUR, so it is much easier to spot packages that have been dropped to AUR.
Pamac users can also cancel AUR rebuilds selectively if they need to read or think about an unfamiliar package
And even many of the people commenting in the updates threads have not read the first two posts ā let alone the rest of the thread, where someone else reporting or asking about the same thing has already been answered. 
Indeed. And in most cases, the literal instructions for this are provided in the two opening posts.
It still baffles me how people can learn how to write without having learned how to read. 
2 Likes
IMHO
I think itās a sign of nervous impatience, which most people grow out of, but apparently not everyoneā¦
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Among the reports submitted after the 2025-12-08 Update there were clear examples where removing AUR sourced packages, and some that were only recently dropped to the AUR (but remained installed), would have been preferable.
The preventative potential of the recommendation with respect a large update such as 2025-12-08 outweighs that Pamac (under normal circumstances) does automate the separation of concerns.
A separate update session for AUR may indeed have been desirable in the case where building from source took an exceptional amount of time, and a build failure was misinterpreted as a general update failure, and subsequently aborted.
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Continuing the discussion from [INFO] Stable branch - BIG update BEST practice:
I get a warning that some programs, such as evince, optionally need the packages Iām about to delete. Should I ignore this?
Let me demonstrate with an example
[teo@teo-lenovo-v15 ~]$ pamac info engrampa
Name : engrampa
Version : 1.28.2-2
Description : A file archiver for MATE
URL : https://mate-desktop.org
Licenses : GPL-2.0-or-later
Repository : extra
Installed Size : 13,5 MB
Groups : mate-extra
Depends On : gtk3 gzip gettext libarchive tar unzip zip
Optional Dependencies : caja: Caja support
p7zip: 7Z and ARJ archive support [Installed]
unace: ACE archive support [Installed]
unrar: RAR archive support [Installed]
brotli: Brotli compression support [Installed]
rpm-tools: RPM support
cpio: RPM support
So, do i need rpm support in my archiving program? Only i can answer that. If i am dual-booting with Fedora, maybe i would want to fiddle with some .rpm package from the manjaro install some time.
But i am not dualbooting with fedora, so i do not care about this. And i do not have it installed.
So - only you can tell if you need optional dependency somewhere. If you do not have it, some particular function of some program will not work, but the question is, do you care? Only you can answer it.
Unless you optionally need one of the dependent packages for another package you have installed, then yes, you can safely ignore those warnings.
Thanks.
Hope Iāll muster the strength to update soon.
Iād say that the recommendations are very flexible.
Apart from AUR packages, which can really mess things, the --orphans and --unneded will only clean up your system - and by that cleanup - the download size will be reduced.
removing --orphans is a good idea - amongst others - it will remove any packages which is no longer in the official repo.
removing --unneeded is a bonus - if you are on a metered connection and want to download as little as possible.
Optional packages are packages not strictly required - but may have some useful functionality.