[Nmh-workers] OT: Arch Linux.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Bob,

> I have a sufficiently non-standard install.  Specifically, I prefer to
> use ctwm instead of any of the modern "desktops"

Arch Linux's install media leaves one at a VT with a shell.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide runs through the
next steps, Internet access, partitioning, installing the core packages,
and finishes with references to other wiki pages about common packages.
So you get to choose if X might be useful, what window manager, etc.
There are packages that just depend on lots of others so Gnomers can get
their fix easily.

> I need to see what has changed since my last OS update, which usually
> means figuring out the new way to do XYZ -- and that's what typically
> causes this to balloon to days

With a rolling release, this tends to be a steady trickle of incremental
package upgrades, most don't bother me, and when one does other users
are in the same boat *now* so the solution is normally easy to find,
e.g. top thread on the forum, rather than digging about for something
from months ago when "testing" users first encountered it.

> is it trivially easy to undo a package's upgrade?

As a rolling release, a package can assume your other packages are up to
date so there's not the "pinning" of one package at an old version
whilst the rest move on.  I think you can do it, but it's explicitly not
supported.

The repo has the current packages.  There's an
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archive that has the previous ones,
and I used that once for the Nvidia problem that stopped graphics
working.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy