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

[Daniel Micay]

On 03/04/14 01:36 PM, Nowaker wrote:
>> 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? ;-)

Which is why I'm suggesting a reinstall with pacstrap.

>> 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.

You won't have a list of which ones are explicit vs. implicit though.
IMO there's not much harm in simply reinstalling base along with the
packages are actually wanted. If nothing else, it's an involuntary
spring cleaning.

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