January 2026 - Arch-general - lists.archlinux.org

Hit by the pacman/makepkg "error: could not open file /var/cache/pacman/pkg/download-uq8lgk: Error reading fd 7"
by David C Rankin 09 Jan '26

09 Jan '26

All, Devs, From earlier discussions, I thought the empty stray directory problem in /var/cache/pacman/pkg had been identified and solved. But I was hit again today with directories created this year, e.g. sudo pacman -Sc error: could not open file /var/cache/pacman/pkg/download-peUZUV: Error reading fd 7 error: could not open file /var/cache/pacman/pkg/download-uq8lgk: Error reading fd 7 Where, e.g.: $ sudo ls -al /var/cache/pacman/pkg/download-peUZUV total 352 drwx------ 2 alpm alpm 4096 Jan 1 03:42 . drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 352256 Jan 8 21:56 .. I went ahead and just removed both directories. If there are any logs you are interested in, let me know, but I know the commit that led to this has already been identified. I'm just not sure of the fix. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.

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Incompatible gdal and python-gdal packages?
by max＠friedersdorff.com 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

Hi All, I have an issue trying to use the python gdal bindings. Even just importing (`from osgeo import gdal`) fails because the python bindings try to reference libgdal.so.37, but the gdal package ships libgdal.so.38. I'm not sure how this happens, given that both packages are built buy the same PKGBUILD (https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/gdal) To reproduce: ``` $ sudo pacman -S gdal python-gdal $ python Python 3.14.2 (main, Jan 2 2026, 14:27:39) [GCC 15.2.1 20251112] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> from osgeo import gdal ERROR 1: libgdal.so.37: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory ERROR 1: libgdal.so.37: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory >>> ``` Unfortunately I'm not able to reproduce this with the Arch Linux docker image, it pulls completely different versions these packages. That might be a me problem. Other than being an issue when trying to use the python-gdal package directly, it also prevents me from using qgis effectively, since it also relies on the python gdal bindings. qgis itself appears to be built against libgdal.so.38 as expected, it's the built in plugins that rely on python-gdal. Can anyone reproduce this? Many Thanks Max

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Unable to connect to aur/wiki behind SURF network
by Rein Fernhout (Levitating) 07 Jan '26

07 Jan '26

Hey, Some of my friends from snt.utwente.nl noticed that they are receiving empty responses the aur and wiki when connecting from SURF[1] (the dutch university internet provider). Tested from multiple SURF nodes and universities. $ curl http://wiki.archlinux.org/ -v * Host wiki.archlinux.org:80 was resolved. * IPv6: 2604:cac0:a104:d::4 * IPv4: 209.126.35.81 * Trying [2604:cac0:a104:d::4]:80... * Established connection to wiki.archlinux.org (2604:cac0:a104:d::4 port 80) from 2001:67c:2564:ab12:365a:60ff:fe3b:d702 port 60768 * using HTTP/1.x > GET / HTTP/1.1 > Host: wiki.archlinux.org > User-Agent: curl/8.17.0 > Accept: */* > * Request completely sent off * Empty reply from server * shutting down connection #0 curl: (52) Empty reply from server [1]: https://www.surf.nl/en

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Kernel 6.18. When will it be available?.
by Jose Luis Alarcon Sanchez 02 Jan '26

02 Jan '26

Hi. First of all, i'm new on Arch Linux, so i apologize if I'm asking something that shouldn't be asked here. As I understand it, Arch is a rolling release, so I'm a little surprised that the automatic jump to kernel version 6.18 hasn't happened yet. Other Rolling Release distros have already switched to this kernel many days ago. So, I would appreciate any brief explanation of how the kernel version change occurs in Arch Linux. Thanks very much in advance. Regards, and Happy Year 2026 for everybody!. Jose Luis. -- https://lordofunix.org/ Not Registered GNU/Hurd User. Registered BSD User 51101. Registered Linux User #213309. Memories..... You are talking about memories. Rick Deckard. Blade Runner.

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