The Arch Linux distribution has switched to the new release of the package manager Pacman 6.1, which adds support for the built-in CacheServer, which caches packages to speed up package loading and simplify the creation of mirrors.
Other changes in the new version of Pacman include:
- Additional output formatting specifiers have been added to the "--print" option.
- It is possible to add extended fields with package data.
- Provides more detailed diagnostic output when conflicts between files are detected or when packages are damaged.
- Improved support for the WKD (Web Key Directory) key directory.
- Improved handling of incorrect headers when loading.
- A transition to OpenSSL has been made to calculate sha256 and md5 hashes.
- The makepkg utility now has the ability to define replacement configuration files in the makepkg.conf.d directory, the transition to the autodeps library has been made instead of libdepends and libprovides, the ability to specify additional flags for Git through the GITFLAGS environment variable has been implemented, the “-D” option has been added to change the directory before verification , added support for checksums for git/mercurial/bzr code sources.
- The behavior of the repo-add utility has been changed so that it no longer adds information about the digital signature of the package to the repository. To return the old behavior, the “--include-sigs” option has been added.
In addition, we can note the release of the Archinstall 2.7.2 installer, which since April 2021 has been included as an option in Arch Linux installation iso images. Archinstall works in console or automatic mode and can be used instead of the default manual installation mode of the distribution. The installer supports installation profiles, for example, the “desktop” profile for selecting a desktop (KDE, GNOME, Awesome) and installing the packages necessary for its operation, or the “webserver” and “database” profiles for selecting and installing the stuffing of web servers and DBMS.
Among the changes in the new version of Archinstall:
- The "--skip-ntp" option is documented to disable time synchronization.
- Improved support for UKI (Unified Kernel Image) kernel images, which combine a handler for loading the kernel from UEFI (UEFI boot stub), a Linux kernel image and the initrd system environment loaded into memory.
- Added translation into Lithuanian.
- Updated locale files.
- The plasma-wayland-session package has been replaced with plasma-workspace (KDE 6 has Wayland enabled by default).
Source: opennet.ru
