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linuxmemes @lemmy.world The Stoned Hacker @lemmy.world

Genuinely the only time Arch has broken something I can't fix myself

Context: A few days ago Arch pushed out a legitimately broken update. This was because they shipped out a testing version of util-linux. They very quickly fixed this... except I use SE Linux (say what you will I wanted to dive into it) and now I'm stuck waiting for the maintainer to update the AUR package so I can fix my system. This is not a general arch problem but a me problem because of my less standard, more niche build. Although the wait is genuinely making me reconsider using SE Linux as it's been a hassle to maintain (just to keep things up to date, I gave up on keeping it in enforcing mode).

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  • If working with the AUR,
    you can alter the PKGBUILD and other build files on your own behalf.

    To either fix what's wrong,
    or to roll back to a previous version of the package.

    I've did both a few times already,
    however I'm on Manjaro.
    Pamac, their graphical installer,
    prompts me if I'd like to edit the build files before starting the build/install process, unsure how to do it in Arch, but the ArchWiki should be able to tell you.

    Also, if you'd fix what's wrong,
    please post your diff on the AUR package thread, that can save the maintainer some work / help with rolling an updated package out to the other users faster.

    • I attempted to do so, but the package applies some patches to the source code and it's version dependent. I don't have the experience with this specific project to easily fix it, and I suspect by the time I figure it out the update will have already been pushed.

      • You can try rolling back to a previous version though.

        By checking the log section in the AUR,
        you can see all the commits (changes) done to the build files.
        https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/log/?h=util-linux-selinux

        Clicking on a commit message shows you the diff.

        Start by the last commit,
        undo the changes (green lines),
        re-apply the removals (red lines),
        then attempt to re-build.

        If that did not work out,
        do the same for the commit before that until you rolled back up to the latest working version.

        • This specific version of the package isn't the issue, it's that main repo packages are built on the updated version and this hasn't been updated yet. I'm unsure of the process that is used to choose and apply the patches for this project, and I'm unsure if the current version in the repos actually has the work done on it for this specific package.

12 comments