Arch updater is a script to somewhat simplify and automate system upgrade for Arch Linux
Arch Linux installation with core package group. Configuration file archupdater.conf has to be present in the same directore as archupdater script itself; copy archupdater.conf.sample and modify to your needs.
archupdater has to be run with root permissions. It first parses configuration file and does a sanity check on input. Then it force-refreshes all package databases by running pacman -Syy. User will be prompted before refresh happens.
Now it gathers the list of upgradable (out-of-date) packages by running pacman -Qu and filters out packages listed in ARCHUPDATER_PACKAGE_IGNORE_LIST; this comes in handy later when it determines what (if any) post-upgrade command to run.
At this point, it has all necessary information to put together upgrade and post-upgrade commands.
Upgrade command will take the form of pacman -Su --ignore=pkg1,pkg2,pkg3,... --ignoregroup=pkg1,pkg2,pkg3,... where --ignore and --ignoregroup are, respectively, ommitted completely if ARCHUPDATER_PACKAGE_IGNORE_LIST and ARCHUPDATER_PACKAGE_IGNOREGROUP_LIST are not present or are empty.
Post-upgrade command is determined in the following, cascading fashion:
- if any package in
ARCHUPDATER_BOOTLOADER_INSTALL_TRIGGER_PACKAGE_LISTappears in filtered upgradable package list, the command will take the form of$ARCHUPDATER_BOOTLOADER_INSTALL_COMMAND && $ARCHUPDATER_BOOTLOADER_UPDATE_COMMAND; as an example from the sample configuration file, ifgruborefibootmgrpackages are about to be upgraded, the command will look likegrub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB && grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg - if any Linux kernel package (
linux[[:alnum:]-]*) appears in filtered upgradable package list, the command will take the form of$ARCHUPDATER_BOOTLOADER_UPDATE_COMMAND; as an example from the sample configuration file, the command will look likegrub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg - if neither of the previous cases are valid, post-upgrade command will be empty
Now, everything is ready to run upgrade and post-upgrade commands. The script prints out its command plan and prompts user before procedure begins. Note that pacman -Su ... still requires user to confirm upgrade, at which point CTRL+C can still be invoked to cancel the entire upgrade and nothing will be changed apart from previously (force-)refreshed package databases.
As the author of this script and, although new to Arch, nearly two decade veteran of Linux (initially Slackware and now Void), I strongly suggest every Arch (or otherwise) user to have at least two kernels installed on their systems; in the case of Arch, I suggest linux and linux-lts packages. Further, I would suggest that linux-lts is kept permanently on ignore list and is only upgraded by hand, if at all. It is a royal pain in the posterior dealing with a non-booting machine.
Also note that if you plan to put any kernel package on ignore list, I strongly suggest, if applicable to your case, putting all packages relating to that kernel package on ignore list as well (like headers or DKMS packages). In my particular case, I have linux-lts, linux-lts-headers, and nvidia-lts packages on ignore list, so in case linux does not boot, I can always reboot in linux-lts and have fully working system with GUI to troubleshoot the problem.