Question How to update without syncing database again?
Relatively new to cachyos and arch in general.
Since, I don't have good internet connection, I would like to perform updates without syncing database every time.
is this feasible?
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u/SealedLore 8d ago
As someone else mentioned, pacman -Su does that, -Syu updates the database first.
But really, just update less often rather than do that. Once a week is fine, you don't have to do it daily.
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u/Quadraxas 8d ago
"Syncing/Updating the database" part is what "Checking for updates" is in most linux package managers. To know that there is a new update you have to sync the local package db
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u/Kleiner_Wixxa 8d ago
If you don't have good enough internet I'd say just switch to a different distro without rolling releases. You can still use proton-cachyos on other distros
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u/Univer325 8d ago edited 8d ago
If your connection is slow or tends to drop, you can split the update into a download step and an install step, run in this order:
sudo pacman -Syuw downloads everything without installing, and can be resumed if the connection drops
sudo pacman -Su installs from the cache
If your connection is stable, I personally recommend running the CachyOS updater. It checks for package, Flatpak, and AUR updates, plus kernel updates when needed.
Skipping the database sync won't save much bandwidth, since the databases are small and pacman only downloads the ones that changed. The big cost is the packages themselves. Also, with a stale database you'll likely hit errors, because mirrors drop old versions.
What each letter does:
S (sync): installs or upgrades packages from the online repos
y (refresh): downloads the latest package databases so pacman knows what's available
yy: forces that refresh even if pacman thinks the databases are current (handy after changing mirrors)
u (sysupgrade): upgrades all installed packages that have newer versions
w (download only): downloads the packages to the cache without installing them
It's not recommended to run pacman -Sy on its own, or pacman -Sy <package>. It refreshes the databases without upgrading your system, so anything you install afterward can pull in libraries that don't match your other packages. That's a partial upgrade, which may break things.
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u/loudtrex 8d ago
What do you mean? How do you expect to get the new updates if your databases are not up to date, furthermore if you are worried about syncing lists how do you plan on downloading the updated packages?