I am relatively new to Arch Linux and I really like its rolling-release concept. Now what I want to know is that before I do a system update via pacman -Syu
, I want to create a restore point so that should my system update fail, I can go back to the last good state my computer was in before the attempted system update.
This is because once when I did a pacman -Syu
on my Arch install, it b0rked my system and wouldn't boot. It happened when I still had minimal to no essential files on my computer so I did a fresh install. But now that I sort of slowly built a system much to my liking, I don't want to reinstall it from scratch and do all the things I have already done again should a system update break it. With a restore point, I can most likely restore my computer without the hassle of reinstalling everything.
So, how so I create, and use, restore points in Arch linux?
Best Answer
Arch isn't designed to work like that: it is a rolling release, so you are always going to have to continue to upgrade packages as they are pushed to your repo: the only alternative is to freeze everything.
Having said that, what you are asking can best be managed, within the Arch framework by doing two things:
updating regularly (so that you are only upgrading small numbers of packages at a time) and using the logs in
/var/log/pacman.log
to provide a list of packages to rollback if something does go wrong.Not clearing the cache of packages prematurely, or—if you need the space—before you do issue a
pacman -Sc
orpacman -Scc
, then backing up/var/cache/pacman/pkg/
to an external drive so that you have access to older versions if you do need to downgrade a package or packages.If you are not running the
[Testing]
repo, then the reality is there is very little in the way of breakage and when it happens it is well-documented. As wojox noted, reading is a prerequisite for maintaining a well-running Arch Linux installation.For Linux in general, you can use a tool like Clonezilla to make snapshots of your current install.
Caveat All of the above is referring to your system. You should, of course, have a regime in place to back up your data.