How I manage Arch Linux updates
My goals
I want to be able to update my machine at any time without having to waste a lot of time waiting for stuff to download. Over the years I’ve had my fair share of small issues occuring when doing an update on a system running a “desktop”. So for a few years now I do my updates when logged out of a “desktop” in a tty.
Download latest packges locally
I usually use 2 distinct steps to update any of my machines.
1st: download the latest packages available for update.
$ sudo pacman -Syuw
I can do this manually while still working on the machine.
Update
Whenever I see fit I will run the actual update. I’m not updating every day, so a kernel update or another system critical package update is not uncommon in this case. Once I have decided I will do an update I close everything. I logout of my “desktop” and switch to tty2 (ctrl + alt + F2).
I login on the tty and run the following:
$ sudo pacman -Su
$ sudo pacdiff
$ reboot
Bonus: automatic download of updated packages
For my personal desktop and my work laptop, I know they will be running at noon, but usually between 12h30 and 13h00 I will be eating. For this I have added a systemd timer that will trigger updated pacakges downloads at 12h30. So I know the machine will be running and I’m probably doing nothing with it at that time.
Just add 2 small files in /etc/systemd/system.
1 - /etc/systemd/system/download-updates.service
[Unit]
Description=download package updates
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pacman -Syuw --noconfirm
The service file has no ‘install’ section, because it just needs to be triggered by the timer, nothing else.
2 - /etc/systemd/system/download-updates.timer
[Unit]
Description=download updates for install
[Timer]
OnCalendar=Mon..Fri 12:30
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
This will do nothing yet. If we list the timers, no download updates there.
$ sudo systemctl list-timers
NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT ACTIVATES
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 13min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago logrotate.timer logrotate.service
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 13min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago man-db.timer man-db.service
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 13min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago shadow.timer shadow.service
Thu 2019-05-23 19:31:27 CEST 21h left Wed 2019-05-22 16:49:09 CEST 4h 57min ago systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
4 timers listed.
Pass --all to see loaded but inactive timers, too.
So just enable the new timer and your machine will download the latest package updates every workday at 12h30.
$ sudo systemctl enable download-updates.timer
To check if the new timer is there list ‘all’ timers
$ sudo systemctl list-timers --all
NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT ACTIVATES
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 9min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago logrotate.timer logrotate.service
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 9min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago man-db.timer man-db.service
Thu 2019-05-23 00:00:00 CEST 2h 9min left Wed 2019-05-22 10:22:37 CEST 11h ago shadow.timer shadow.service
Thu 2019-05-23 19:31:27 CEST 21h left Wed 2019-05-22 16:49:09 CEST 5h 1min ago systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
n/a n/a n/a n/a download-updates.timer download-updates.service
5 timers listed.
Voila, there it is, no more worrying about downloading, just run the update whenever it fits.
Closing
This is my preferred way of updating my Arch Linux machines. You should not feel obliged to do it this way. It just works great for me.