[arch-general] /var lost, how "reinstal" Archlinux?

[Nowaker]

> The pacman database was in /var so there's little point in trying to reinstall the same packages

What about software updates, security fixes, etc? ;-)

> What is the less pain method to get it again up and running? The problem I
> see are pacman list of installed packages?

Although you don't know what packaged you had (/var lost), you may use 
/usr/bin/pkgfile to determine what package a file belongs to, e.g.

% pkgfile /usr/lib/liblink-grammar.so
extra/link-grammar

Run this across all the files in /usr, /etc and others, and you have a 
list of the packages that need to be installed again.

Note: you need pkgfile, which means you need it from pacman, which means 
you need to pacstrap. Daniel wrote how to do it.

-- 
Kind regards,
Damian Nowak
StratusHost
www.AtlasHost.eu