As much I really enjoy the sense of satisfaction I get in booting and then logging into this shiny new EOS, doing so is mostly prompted by rebooting due to kernel (and header) update via the usual system update process.
I am not going to be making any significant hardware changes, and the kernel I am using now (new today) seems fine (hope I’m not jinxing things!), so I think that I’m fine to park the updates for the kernel and the reboots doing so prompts.
Is there a way that I can stop new versions of the kernel being updated, aside from security fixes, and assuming yes, then what is the EOS/ Arch way of doing this, please?
You can add IgnorePkg to you your pacman.conf. For example, for the default kernel IgnorePkg = linux linux-headers, however this comes with a caveat and it’s a big one. Arch and by extension, Endeavour is a upgrade it all distro. Partial upgrades are not supported and will eventually cause you problems.
Why not install an LTS kernel, and use it by default? We’re on 6.12 now. That gets security fixes, etc. but is stable for years. AND they test many system features against it.
Thanks for the warning. In that case, is there a way of installing the LTS kernel as SdW suggested, and how do I do that without tanking my system?
Is there an idiot’s guide you’ve perhaps pointed other idiots towards, because I couldn’t tell a good from a bad set of advice. For example, these instructions seem quite straightforward, but couldn’t vouch for their accuracy or whether this will lead to problems or even if there are particular advantages to doing so.
Just don’t run the update in the first place, until you are ready to do the reboot. You don’t need to update first thing when you sit down; it’s fine to put it off until you have time to properly deal with it.
You should avoid updating some packages but not others. Typically it is best to update all packages at once.
You can install the LTS kernel like this:
sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers
Note that although the LTS kernel is an older kernel version than the vanilla kernel, it does receive updates at more or less the same cadence. Probably switching kernels will not resolve your grievance with the reboot notifications.
Well I think what is forgotten here that not only kernel updates need a reboot, but also certain other system updates need that, so if you don’t want those updates then simply switch to a distro that doesn’t have updates all the time.
As others have said, an easier solution would be to simply be to do your updates when you are shutting down instead of right after you boot up.
I recommend not running an update notifier if you are compulsive about it. You don’t need to update that often. If you update twice per month, that is usually plenty. You can install arch-audit-gtk so you will get notified of any critical security issues.
The only problem is you have to update first before installing something so you probably would end up with quite another schedule without realizing it.
For me, once my system has been running for a few months, it is pretty rare that I install software. Also, even if update says you need to reboot, in almost all cases, it isn’t an immediate need. You can usually wait until the next time you shutdown.
For me that would be about the same thing where it installing software concerns , but I bet that there is a number of users that like to try out things just because they can, and do that as fast as possible. And when they get the (in)famous notification of rebooting, they would reboot (almost) immediately.
Because those driver modules are no longer available at the same version (after you install a newer kernel)…so you can’t load new modules. (not some reason..that’s the reason)
Even funnier: USB disks that are already connected, continue as usual. Newly connected USB disks do not get recognized. I’m not so sure it needs to load the “USB storage” module per disk…
You can use the kernel-modules-hook package to keep the old modules until you reboot if you really need to alleviate this. Personally I always reboot after a kernel package update, so I’ve never used this, but I know people who do, and they say it just works.
Thanks! I usually reboot as soon as I see the reboot message, and more often than not when I don’t see the message but I know I updated parts of Plasma et al. Will take a look at that hook.
That is interesting. I didn’t know about it. I am fast to pull the trigger on updates but not so keen sometimes to reboot immediately. This may come in handy. Thanks for sharing!
Simple answer, no. More complicated answer, maybe (but why?). And, no, there is no Arch way of properly ignoring any package indefinitely, or for any significant length of time. But hopefully others have already alerted you to these answers.
