os

zabbix >= 7.4.1-2 may require manual intervention

Starting with 7.4.1-2, the following Zabbix system user accounts (previously shipped by their related packages) will no longer be used. Instead, all Zabbix components will now rely on a shared zabbix user account (as originally intended by upstream and done by other distributions):

  • zabbix-server
  • zabbix-proxy
  • zabbix-agent (also used by the zabbix-agent2 package)
  • zabbix-web-service

This shared zabbix user account is provided by the newly introduced zabbix-common split package, which is now a dependency for all relevant zabbix-* packages.

The switch to the new user account is handled automatically for the corresponding main configuration files and systemd service units.

However, manual intervention may be required if you created custom files or configurations referencing to and / or being owned by the above deprecated users accounts, for example:

  • PSK files used for encrypted communication
  • Custom scripts for metrics collections or report generations
  • sudoers rules for metrics requiring elevated privileges to be collected
  • ...

Those should therefore be updated to refer to and / or be owned by the new zabbix user account, otherwise some services or user parameters may fail to work properly, or not at all.

Once migrated, you may remove the obsolete user accounts from your system.

linux-firmware >= 20250613.12fe085f-5 upgrade requires manual intervention

With 20250613.12fe085f-5, we split our firmware into several vendor-focused packages. linux-firmware is now an empty package depending on our default set of firmware.

Unfortunately, this coincided with upstream reorganizing the symlink layout of the NVIDIA firmware, resulting in a situation that Pacman cannot handle. When attempting to upgrade from 20250508.788aadc8-2 or earlier, you will see the following errors:

linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad103 exists in filesystem
linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad104 exists in filesystem
linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad106 exists in filesystem
linux-firmware-nvidia: /usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ad107 exists in filesystem

To progress with the system upgrade, first remove linux-firmware, then reinstall it as part of the upgrade:

# pacman -Rdd linux-firmware
# pacman -Syu linux-firmware

Plasma 6.4.0 will need manual intervention if you are on X11

On Plasma 6.4 the wayland session will be the only one installed when the users does not manually specify kwin-x11.

With the recent split of kwin into kwin-wayland and kwin-x11, users running the old X11 session needs to manually install plasma-x11-session, or they will not be able to login. Currently pacman is not able to figure out your personal setup, and it wouldn't be ok to install plasma-x11-session and kwin-x11 for every one using Plasma.

tldr: Install plasma-x11-session if you are still using x11

Transition to the new WoW64 wine and wine-staging

We are transitioning the wine and wine-staging package to a pure wow64 build. This change removes the dependency on the multilib repository for wine and wine-staging.

The main reason for this is to align with upstream Wine development, which simplifies packaging and the dependency chain.

Potential Issues:

  • OpenGL Performance: A known limitation of the new WoW64 mode is reduced performance for 32-bit applications that use OpenGL directly
  • Breaking Changes: Existing 32-bit prefixes needs to be recreated

If you are facing issues with 32 bit prefixes, please recreate these and reinstall the application.

Updated Debian 12: 12.11 released

The Debian project is pleased to announce the eleventh update of its stable distribution Debian 12 (codename bookworm). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available.

Valkey to replace Redis in the [extra] Repository

Valkey, a high-performance key/value datastore, will be replacing redis in the [extra] repository. This change is due to Redis modifying its license from BSD-3-Clause to RSALv2 and SSPLv1 on March 20th, 2024.

Arch Linux Package Maintainers intend to support the availability of the redis package for roughly 14 days from the day of this post, to enable a smooth transition to valkey. After the 14 day transition period has ended, the redis package will be moved to the AUR. Also, from this point forward, the redis package will not receive any additional updates and should be considered deprecated until it is removed.

Users are recommended to begin transitioning their use of Redis to Valkey as soon as possible to avoid possible complications after the 14 day transition window closes.

Updated Debian 12: 12.10 released

The Debian project is pleased to announce the tenth update of its stable distribution Debian 12 (codename bookworm). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available.