Thanks for the very thorough reply. One more thing that could be added to that is the use of the paccache command, where for instance sudo paccache -rvk3 would remove all but the last 3 versions of a package/s from pacman’s cache. That number can be changed to whatever you prefer. Useful for downgrading a package if really neccessary, although I’ve never had to so far.
Your call on that one. You could use this in lieu of just flat out clearing the cache as I suggested.
For more information on that, check out the wiki.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman#Cleaning_the_package_cache
Anyway, I also agree, over the years I have also learned more and more about using the terminal because I felt it was a challenge to learn the basic and useful Linux commands.
“yay”, that’s just too easy! 
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I like how Calamares shows the terminal so we can learn what it looks like if we typed in manually.
Kate integrated with Krusader shows the terminal commands when doing anything in the GUI. I have learned so much about linux synatx just by watching the terminal emulation.
Great advice. First time I have seen the recommendation to log out of the DE. It is surely a lot faster.
Michael
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I use ctrl-alt-f3 this fully removes you from the GUI.
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Ah how I’ve changed over the years. Much is still the same. Some things I have learned better from in the last 2 years.
I still usually drop to a TTY for updates. I’ve learned a different way to clear the cache, and I keep twice as much journaling on hand. I also gave up on topgrade and don’t bother with timeshift either. I keep on learning there’s no exact way to do this stuff, and that’s the most fun part of all of this. Two more years down the line it may be different again.
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I am not ready to drop Timeshift with autosnap and grub-btrfs just yet.
Why extra journaling?
Michael
I usually do a lot of my updates monthly, so it feels better to me. I know a number of people who trim to a file size parameter than a length of time. I like 4 weeks.
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