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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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With Arch partial upgrades are explicitly not supported. You either upgrade all packages to the current version or you upgrade nothing. With Debian that's different, you can upgrade a single package (with its dependencies) just fine. Technically you can do whatever you want of course.
That said, I wouldn't really worry about upgrades, even on old hardware. Choosing a desktop environment is much more impactful if you worry about performance.
I'm not sure what you mean. There's a specific section in
/etc/pacman.conffor ignoring specific or group/meta packages. You absolutely can ignore specific packages and run a typicalpacman -Syuto update everything else just fine.ETA: and you can upgrade a single package with
pacman -Sy <package name>You can if you know what you're doing, but you shouldn't. In the context of this question holding back an Arch package is not a feature of Arch OP should rely on in every day use. In Debian this is supported (up to a point).
I would agree with that wisdom in general. I don't think any package manager would prefer a user piecemeal updates like that.