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jester
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 Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2025 8:12 am Post subject: Arch Users: Check your mirrors |
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I just got back from a 2 week business trip and set about updating my boxes. On this one I have Arch64 and I thought it somewhat strange that after 2 weeks there were no updates.
I checked the arch forums and found this post:
Doing as suggested by another user I checked out
https://users.archlinux.de/~gerbra/mirrorcheck.html
The mirrors I had been using were indeed out of date. Switching to a 'fresh' mirror I found I had 125 updates worth 330MB downlaod and 1.1G installed...
I'm not sure how they let so many mirrors get so out of date (one was listed as more than a year out of date) but it does strike me as a flaw in the package management of Arch or at the very least the governance model of the distribution.
If any Arch users know of a way (not requiring regular manual intervention) to get around this, I'm open to it.
For now I'm keeping tabs on this - after close to 3 years that's a first for me, hopefully it's not a sign of the distro going into decline.
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platinummonkey
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jester
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| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2025 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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@platinummonkey: archlinux' official repo from japan is painfully slow... the ones I had I didn't think were particularly esoteric
The comments you make about official mirros, newsfeeds, and revocation of status are exactly what I'm talking about when I mention governance - I do know how to read the fine manual and track down my own issues, but for someone less experienced, it could be a turn-off
The other point here is that I've not had this problem in 3 years and now I'm seeing multiple threads on the arch forums:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.html?id=86478
I doubt Arch is dying, but they are letting some corners of the 'garden go to seed' IMO
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platinummonkey
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mmmna
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| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2025 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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lol!
When you posted 'check your mirrors', I though you meant rear view mirrors, as if something was gaining on Arch... I was thinking: "I've just hear that Gentoo was getting some of its act together.... is that what this post is about?".
PCLinuxOS has this one mirror (of the 2 I've used but there is over a dozen more than these 2) that seems to lag behind quite a bit (weeks, at times), but a year out is just shameful. I'd wonder if possibly Arch has reached its zenith.... can't get mirrors updated might mean that mirror is not getting much traffic for one reason or another. Hmmm. I'll have to wait and see how the next year plays out.
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crouse
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| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2025 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds mostly like the rsyc/cron jobs to keep mirrors updated borked on one or more mirrors.... the fault of a mirror maintainer, not of the distribution. Mirrors are all volunteer efforts .... so stuff like this can happen.
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melloe
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| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2025 7:48 am Post subject: |
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I did so cleverly misread, and just downgraded the kernel, so I suspect there also some not necessarily outdated, but older packages in some also. Still in the 2.6.31 series and still works fine....so
Have to read more carefully <G><
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jester
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| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2025 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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| crouse wrote: | | Sounds mostly like the rsyc/cron jobs to keep mirrors updated borked on one or more mirrors.... the fault of a mirror maintainer, not of the distribution. Mirrors are all volunteer efforts .... so stuff like this can happen. |
Agree and disagree: yes, most distros (aside from the Suses, Ubuntus, and Fedoras) are voluntary efforts from conception through to delivery, so agreed, the mirror maintainer is responsible for his/her mirror.
No, because package management is a key differentiator for distros; the ease with which a system can be maintained is critical to the user experience and for a newcomer to the linux arena may ultimately be a deciding factor as to whether they stay or go. For that reason I think for a distro to be successful, they need a governance model that includes minimum standards for devs, package maintainers as well as mirror 'managers'.
I don't want to blow this out of proportion - I love Arch and pacman is a key part of the attraction - for me the DIY aspect of linux is a plus, not a minus, but for many I know that the view is the less DIY the better. What triggered my initial post was that this was the first time I had encountered this issue in Arch and that recently several others had had the same experience - the question really is, why now?
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crouse
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platinummonkey
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jester
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) and archlinux's official repo (but that's throttled).
