Can't edit pacman.conf

[lionbounce]

Just installed EndeavourOS with Gnome, and trying to add a repo to my pacman.conf.
It seems to be a read-only file though. How would I actually go by editing it?

Reason is I’m following this guide to install stuff specific to my laptop https://asus-linux.org/wiki/arch-guide/

Thank you

[sradjoker]

Are you trying to edit it using a graphical editor or a cli editor?
You need root privileges to edit pacman.conf file.
If you want to edit it using nano use:

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

and then make changes and save the file.

[Kresimir]

Or just install those packages from the AUR, without adding a third-party repo.

Both asusctl and supergfxctl are there, as well as the G14 kernel (which you probably don’t need).

[lionbounce]

Thank you that worked!

[lionbounce]

The page says “Packages like asusctl-git from AUR aren’t supported.”

[sradjoker]

Welcome to the forums!!

Please mark my post as the solution so that this topic can be closed

[Kresimir]

Yeah, of course they’re going to say that. They want you to add their repo.

Personally, I wouldn’t (at least not without first trying the AUR packages), but it’s your system.

[FAQ] The dangers of using 3rd party repos

This is something I wrote last year and posted somewhere else. I thought it was worth sharing here as I see a lot of people using 3rd party repos. There are often discussions about the dangers of using AUR but it seems like there a lot less focus is on the dangers of using 3rd party repos. In general, using a 3rd party repo is much more dangerous than using AUR. With an AUR package, everything is fully transparent and the package is built on your machines. A quick look at the PKGBUILD file wi…

[dalto]

Ahh…this would concern me:

[g14]
SigLevel = DatabaseNever Optional TrustAll

[sradjoker]

This was a good read. Nice work @dalto !! It would be great if it were in the wiki. This sort of information is important. I didn’t know before.

[Kresimir]

Yeah, it looks very fishy.

[lionbounce]

Well crap, I’m an idiot. Sorry I’m brand new to the Linux space lol.
How would I go by removing it now that I’ve installed it haha.

[HMS_Endeavour]

Welcome to the forum @lionbounce
Even though you got your solution, how to edit your pacman.conf as root, I would be really careful which repos you stick in there, IMHO.

[lionbounce]

Ok I removed most things:

• Deleted repo from pacman.conf
• sudo pacman -R asusctl
• sudo pacman -R supergfxctl
• sudo pacman -R linux-g14 linux-g14-headers
• sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Not sure how I would undo this:

After adding the repo run a full system update before you go to install tools from the repo:
pacman -Suy

[pycrk]

this is wrong, the right command is sudo pacman -Syu

[fbodymechanic]

@lionbounce

After adding the repo run a full system update before you go to install tools from the repo:
pacman -Suy

You already did by removing the packages.

[pycrk]

if you install packages with dependencies, you can remove the package and the dependencies with the following command:

pacman -Rs package_name

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/pacman#Removing_packages

[lionbounce]

Oooooh I get it, that’s the command to just update the actual EndeavourOS?

[fbodymechanic]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Rosetta

[sradjoker]

I would recommend you to read these two wiki posts

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Rosetta

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman

[lionbounce]

Thank you all very much. I have had an issue with installing base Arch, and then moving to EndeavourOS, and had an issue literally every step of the way. Just now I had to learn to fix bluetooth because my UE Boom wouldn’t get sound, and my headphones would disconnect immediately (all fixed now I think by switching to pulseaudio instead of pre-installed pipewire!)

I really appreciate everybody’s help and knowledge in regards to this pacman.conf situation