I just now did a full system update while i was updating my mirrors and rolled in about 500mb of updates. So afterwards i did a reboot and logged back into my system (the login screen hangs for like 20 seconds now) but anyways i was looking at the log and noticed it said ’ warning: /etc/locale.gen installed as /etc/locale.gen.pacnew’. Being new to manjaro i dont know why this is. But i popped into the pacnew file and it has all the locale configs and i had uncomment the ‘en_us_utf8’ line again and save the file. So my question is…why? and was i supposed to do that? was it necessary? didnt seem to change anything and my regular locale.conf file already had the correct locale in it. soo what the point of that file? thanks in advance
Pacnew is a file bei g created by pacman, when an update to a configuration file happens, that has been modified by the user. So that your configuration is not automatically overwritten.
For more details have a look here
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave
From my understanding a pacnew file should not be interfering with the running of your system.
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ohh okay so its basically just a backup. Kinda like how ‘oh my zsh’ will make a backup of your original .zsh configuration file when you install it. oookay. i understand. thank you.
edit: i noticed it made a new mkinticpio file as well. theres a command in that link to show all your pacman conf files. cool. good stuff.
No it’s not. Have you actually go and read provided link?
Definitely read the archlinux wiki provided.
Not even close 
It’s more like a conditional replacment that requires manual action.
It is a new version of a configuration file, but it doesn’t overwrite your current configuration file because it has been modified by you or a process since it was originally installed. The change to the configuration could be a new option, an updated comment or a line removed. You need to take action and review what changed. You want the options (they are normally commented and/or the default), but you don’t want your changes lost.
You can use diff to compare them. I run DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff as root. Here is an example of what I see at the terminal (in addition to meld):
=> pacnew file found for /etc/locale.gen
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] :: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q]
removed '/etc/locale.gen.pacnew'
==> pacnew file found for /etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] -> Files are identical, removing...
removed '/etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml.pacnew'
==> pacnew file found for /etc/pulse/default.pa
:: (V)iew, (M)erge, (S)kip, (R)emove pacnew, (O)verwrite with pacnew, (Q)uit: [v/m/s/r/o/q] removed '/etc/pulse/default.pa.pacnew'I will click V to view the changes side-by-side. In meld, I can walk through the changes line-by-line and accept a line if it does not change my preferred setting. I close and save the file and then respond with R to remove the <config>.pacnew file.
IMPORTANT: Always read the Announcement associated with an upgrade because they contain important information about the upgrade and any steps that might be necessary. There is a section toward the top, Known issues and solutions. This section seems to be carried forward to the next update, so there is a bit of history. Checkout the 2022-06-12 - Locale file changes.
I’m updating this entry to add, in addition to the Manjaro Annoucements, a Manjaro user should also view the Archlinux home page, which contains the Latest News. The news may contain manual steps or highlight major changes to packages.
Manjaro Documentation
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uhh yep obviously just didnt fully understand it or made a bad analogy
thank you for your extensive help. I think i did understand it for the most part, i just made a bad analogy trying to articulate it. i installed the vim binary so i could use that pacdiff command and tried it out. Thats very helpful. so after updating your configuration files with the new pacnew files - you are always supposed to delete the pacnew file afterwards right? since we manually updated our config file with it already we dont need it anymore right?
Correct, you don’t need it. I believe a new pacnew would just overwrite the previous pacnew. But the tools don’t distinguish between all pacnew’s and new pacnew’s, so it’s best to remove them after you have reviewed them or you’ll just be reviewing the same ones over again.
I actually keep a few and rename with a Ymd extension. I do this because I’ve made a number of changes and want to diff my config file with the last known default config file if there are questions or issues. It’s just something I’ve done forever and have found it helpful.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I find the configuration files educational, because historically they have come documented.
It’s all part of the learning curve
Cool!
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