On Archlinux it is not recommended to update only one package with the package manager pacman. Let’s say I have 11 packages, and one of them is extra/firefox (true story). Updating only a pacman -S firefox could introduce problems, but installing a new single package if it wasn’t there is okay.

So my question is, could we get around this by removing and installing the same package again in one go: pacman -Rs firefox && pacman -S firefox

  • Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show
    11·
    20 hours ago

    No, pacman -S package is safe. Because the package list is not updated this way, and therefore the system is not updated and nothing else is affected. New packages can be installed with this command, perfectly okay. That is in the spirit of Archlinux.

    If the package is not in your cache, it needs to download it from the remote server first. The version on the remote server is built against the dependencies on the remote server. So if your local dependency is older, it will be a partial update!

      • Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show
        2·
        20 hours ago

        And where does it download the newly installed package from? It’s not in your cache, because you haven’t had it installed before and the remote server only has the newest version.

        • Markaos@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          14 hours ago

          The download will simply fail if the version pacman wants to download isn’t available on the mirror. The version is part of the download URL.