[arch-general] Installing base unattended without specific packages

[Eli Schwartz]

On 5/14/19 5:08 PM, Sefa Eyeoglu via arch-general wrote:
> Hey fellow Arch Users,
> 
> I am currently playing around with the GitLab CI and automatic building of Arch 
> packages. My modified Arch Linux Docker image should include base and base-
> devel, but without all of the kernel and hardware stuff.
> This is the command, that does not work as expected:
> 
> pacman -Syu --needed --noconfirm --noprogressbar --ignore linux,linux-
> firmware base base-devel git
> 
> The packages linux and linux-firmware still get installed. I would prefer if there 
> would be a way to install base, but without all of the irrelevant stuff for 
> containers. I would propose something like base-container for this group.

The --ignore flag does not do what you think it does, it just has the
same result as if you had listed it in pacman.conf in IgnorePkg

Note the documentation: "Directs pacman to ignore upgrades of package
even if there is one available."

If you explicitly specify both packages on the command-line (which you
did when you listed "base") then they will still get installed.
Actually, pacman will interactively prompt you about whether you
actually want to install them, and --noconfirm will default to "yes".

This is relevant e.g. when you have "linux" ignored because you don't
want to upgrade it with every pacman -Syu, but you do want to,
occasionally, update it manually -- if IgnorePkg stopped you from
specifying it on the command line, then it would be literally impossible
to ever update, without modifying your config files in /etc, then
running a manual update, then reverting your config files in /etc.

I do not foresee us changing --ignorepkg to operate with a different
codepath following different rules that differ from IgnorePkg, both
because I think this is misuse of the feature, and because users will
then confuse the two and think they are the same when they are not.

...

OTOH you can achieve your desired goal like this:

$ pacman -Sqg base| grep -Fxv -f <(printf 'linux-firmware\nlinux\n')
# see list of packages in base, minus two that you want to exclude

This list can be further piped to pacman -S -

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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