As a former arch linux guy, the solution to this is to be prepared by having a separate partition for home, and a bash script to reinstall f—ing everything again with a single command.
First of all, almost any Arch update induced problem can be solved by downgrading the offending package to the previous version, which handily is available in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/. This is an essential Arch troubleshooting skill.
Even an unbootable system (which has only happened once in my 10 years of using Arch because I didn’t read important news) can be fixed this way, because you can always boot from the installation usb stick and then use arch-chroot to access your installation and fix problems.
Secondly, if the problem was indeed caused by an Arch update, you will just reinstall the problem if you run a reinstall script.
Well you see, I didn’t know that haha, I know there are better ways to deal with a “defective” arch update but to me, that was the easiest, laziest way to do it and it worked most of the time. I have to admit this was a “me” problem I’m not blaming arch it’s just that I grew tired of things breaking because I didn’t read the news before doing pacman -Syu.
As a former arch linux guy, the solution to this is to be prepared by having a separate partition for home, and a bash script to reinstall f—ing everything again with a single command.
Why would you ever want to do that?
First of all, almost any Arch update induced problem can be solved by downgrading the offending package to the previous version, which handily is available in
/var/cache/pacman/pkg/. This is an essential Arch troubleshooting skill.Even an unbootable system (which has only happened once in my 10 years of using Arch because I didn’t read important news) can be fixed this way, because you can always boot from the installation usb stick and then use
arch-chrootto access your installation and fix problems.Secondly, if the problem was indeed caused by an Arch update, you will just reinstall the problem if you run a reinstall script.
Honestly I only ever learnt Linux admin by troubleshooting my borked Arch updates, necessity being the mother of invention and all.
Ah my last reinstall was because of important news I didn’t read.
Well you see, I didn’t know that haha, I know there are better ways to deal with a “defective” arch update but to me, that was the easiest, laziest way to do it and it worked most of the time. I have to admit this was a “me” problem I’m not blaming arch it’s just that I grew tired of things breaking because I didn’t read the news before doing pacman -Syu.
You reinvented NixOS
I want to install NixOS on a laptop that I have lying around BTW.