1) Why do we have this comment everywhere in the conf file : # Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first In my opinion, all these lines could disappear. It's recommended that you keep all your repositories in sync. That means using the same mirror for all official repo. And since all official repo already have this by default : Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist Only that file needs to be edited, and this will affect all official repo automatically. Advanced users who know what they are doing might not want to use the same mirror everywhere for specific reasons. But I don't think they need a comment everywhere explaining how to do it. But that comment might rather belong to the mirrorlist file. 2) For similar reasons, I don't think the following comment is needed : # REPOSITORIES # - can be defined here or included from another file I doubt many people use that. pacman.conf currently has only two parts : a few options, and the repositories. I don't think there is a need to split these. And again, people who do it probably know what they are doing. 3) I find pacman.conf more readable with more new lines (especially when read without syntax highlighting), so I added a few of these as well, to better separate the different parts, like the comments and the commented lines. Anyway, all these things are not important at all, and might be stupid ideas. It's just random thoughts that came to my mind after seeing an user messed up again configuring his pacman.conf. --- pacman.conf 2008-01-25 19:34:04.000000000 +0100 +++ pacman.conf.new 2008-01-25 18:03:29.000000000 +0100 @@ -6,19 +6,22 @@ # # GENERAL OPTIONS # + [options] + # The following paths are commented out with their default values listed. # If you wish to use different paths, uncomment and update the paths. + #RootDir = / #DBPath = /var/lib/pacman/ #CacheDir = /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ #LogFile = /var/log/pacman.log + HoldPkg = pacman glibc #XferCommand = /usr/bin/wget --passive-ftp -c -O %o %u # # REPOSITORIES -# - can be defined here or included from another file # - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here # - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files # - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages @@ -34,31 +37,28 @@ # # Testing is disabled by default. To enable, uncomment the following -# two lines. You can add preferred servers immediately after the header, -# and they will be used before the default mirrors. +# two lines. + #[testing] #Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist [core] -# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist [extra] -# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist [community] -# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist # Unstable is disabled by default. To enable, uncomment the following -# two lines. You can add preferred servers immediately after the header, -# and they will be used before the default mirrors. +# two lines. + #[unstable] #Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist # An example of a custom package repository. See the pacman manpage for # tips on creating your own repositories. + #[custom] #Server = file:///home/custompkgs -