[Testing Update] 2023-10-30 - Kernel 6.6, Linux-Firmware, KDE-Git, Python

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Known issues and solutions

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:arrow_right: 2023-10-30

2023-10-21

Mechanical HDDs may not spin-down properly on shutdown

There might be a regression introduced with 6.6.0-rc4 which got also backported to 6.1.59 and 6.5.8 Kernels. There is a discussion with the author of the offending patch ongoing here.

ZFS package changes

ZFS extramodules; i.e., linuxXX-zfs, have been dropped from the repos. There have been recent difficulties building them and no one on the Manjaro Team uses ZFS.

Please install zfs-dkms instead. You will to need to manually remove the old 2.1.13 extramodule package(s) first to install the new 2.2.0 packages; i.e., with linux61:

sudo pacman -R linux61-zfs && sudo pacman -Syu zfs-dkms
Restarting gnome-shell using Alt+F2 and entering R, causes a crash

FS#79884 : [gnome-shell] Restarting gnome-shell using Alt+F2 and entering R, causes a crash

GNOME Extensions that target older GNOME versions will not work in GNOME 45

It is recommended to remove all third-party extensions before updating, then install the compatible versions after updating and rebooting. All Most extensions in the Manjaro repos are already updated.

2023-10-05

glibc-locales update requires manual intervention

If you had the old glibc-locales package from the extra repo installed, the update to the new core package will need manual intervention:

 sudo pacman -Syu glibc-locales --overwrite /usr/lib/locale/\*/\*

2023-09-27

Changes to default password hashing algorithm and umask settings

2023-09-22 - David Runge

With shadow >= 4.14.0, Arch Linux’s default password hashing algorithm changed from SHA512 to yescrypt [1].

Furthermore, the umask [2] settings are now configured in /etc/login.defs instead of /etc/profile.

This should not require any manual intervention.

Reasons for Yescrypt

The password-based key derivation function (KDF) and password hashing scheme yescrypt has been chosen due to its adoption (readily available in libxcrypt, which is used by pam [3]) and its stronger resilience towards password cracking attempts over SHA512.

Although the winner of the Password Hashing Competition [4] has been argon2, this even more resilient algorithm is not yet available in libxcrypt [5][6].

Configuring yescrypt

The YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR setting in /etc/login.defs is currently without effect, until pam implements reading its value [7]. If a YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR higher (or lower) than the default (5) is needed, it can be set using the rounds option of the pam_unix [8] module (i.e. in /etc/pam.d/system-auth).

General list of changes

  • yescrypt is used as default password hashing algorithm, instead of SHA512
  • pam honors the chosen ENCRYPT_METHOD in /etc/login.defs and does not override the chosen method anymore
  • changes in the filesystem (>= 2023.09.18) and pambase (>= 20230918) packages ensure, that umask is set centrally in /etc/login.defs instead of /etc/profile

[1] yescrypt - scalable KDF and password hashing scheme

[2] umask(1p) — Arch manual pages

[3] PAM - ArchWiki

[4] https://www.password-hashing.net/

[5] [RFC] Add argon2 backend. by ferivoz · Pull Request #113 · besser82/libxcrypt · GitHub

[6] Add support for Argon2 by maandree · Pull Request #150 · besser82/libxcrypt · GitHub

[7] pam_unix: Support reading YESCRYPT_COST_FACTOR from /etc/login.defs · Issue #607 · linux-pam/linux-pam · GitHub

[8] pam_unix(8) — Arch manual pages

– Arch Linux - News: Changes to default password hashing algorithm and umask settings

2023-09-06

filesystem and bashrc-manjaro pacnews

With the filesystem 2023.09.03-1 and bashrc-manjaro 5.1.016-3 updates there may be pacnews for the following files if you have local modifications:

  • /etc/shells
  • /etc/bash.bashrc

This would be a good time to test @Ste74’s new manjaro-pacnew-checker program. See Check and manage pacnew files for more info.

2023-08-25

ansible-core >= 2.15.3-1 update may require manual intervention

2023-08-19 - Robin Candau

As of ansible-core 2.15.3, upstream moved documentation and examples to a separate dedicated repository (see the related changelogs).
This means that, starting from version 2.15.3 the ansible-core package will stop shipping documentation and a default configuration example under /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg.

Regarding the documentation, it is available online: https://docs.ansible.com/
As for the configuration file, as explained in the wiki, a base config can be generated with the following command:

ansible-config init --disabled > ansible.cfg

After updating from ansible-core <= 2.15.2-1 to >= 2.15.3-1, everyone using a custom global Ansible configuration file stored under /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg will have their configuration saved as a pacsave file.
To restore it, run the following command:

mv /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg.pacsave /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

– Arch Linux - News: ansible-core >= 2.15.3-1 update may require manual intervention

2023-08-04

Possible glibc 2.38 posix_memalign regression

There seems a performance regression of posix_memalign in Glibc-2.38. More info here: 30723 – Poor posix_memalign performance with long free lists

Workarounds:

You can try another malloc like mimalloc or jemalloc as workaround. Install mimalloc and start mpv with:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libmimalloc.so mpv

or

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libjemalloc.so mpv

For folks that dont want to change things too much … an apparent workaround is to set a lowish cache size:

mkdir -p ~/.config/mpv && printf '\ndemuxer-max-bytes=50MiB\ndemuxer-max-back-bytes=25MiB\n' | tee -a ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf
budgie-desktop >= 10.7.2-6 update requires manual intervention

When upgrading from budgie-desktop 10.7.2-5 to 10.7.2-6, the package mutter43 must be replaced with magpie-wm, which currently depends on mutter. As mutter43 conflicts with mutter, manual intervention is required to complete the upgrade.

First remove mutter43, then immediately perform the upgrade. Do not relog or reboot between these steps.

pacman -Rdd mutter43
pacman -Syu

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