How To Downgrade All Packages To A Specific Date In Arch Linux

We already have covered how to downgrade a single package in Arch Linux and Ubuntu. Today, in this brief tutorial, we will see how to downgrade all packages to a specific date in Arch Linux.

The reason for doing this is your Arch Linux might be broken after recent a system upgrade. In such cases, you may need to downgrade more than one packages to a previous working version. Let us see how to do that.

Warning: Don't do this unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary!

Because,

• Having old and outdated packages in your Arch Linux is not recommended. Read the Arch Linux news and forums regularly before updating your Arch Linux system to find out if there have been any reported problems. If users have reported any problem, don't do system update. Wait for one or two days and do the update once the problems have been sorted out.
• If downgrade fails for any reason, you will end up with a broken system. You may not be able to boot into your partially upgraded system.

If you have no choice and wanted to fix the unstable Arch Linux, you can then downgrade all packages to a previous specific version as described in the following steps.

Downgrade All Packages to a Specific Date in Arch Linux

Let us say your Arch Linux system was stable and working fine two days ago. You ran the system update today, and it broke the system. So, you can downgrade all packages to a previous specific date, say 18 August 2017.

To do so, first backup your pacman.conf file:

$ sudo cp /etc/pacman.conf /etc/pacman.conf.bak

Then, edit /etc/pacman.conf file:

$ sudo vi /etc/pacman.conf

Replace the existing contents with the following lines:

[core]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2017/08/18/$repo/os/$arch

[extra]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2017/08/18/$repo/os/$arch

[community]
SigLevel = PackageRequired
Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2017/08/18/$repo/os/$arch

Or, edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist file:

$ sudo vi /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Replace the contents with following:

Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2017/08/18/$repo/os/$arch

Double check the restore date. Save and close the file.

Finally, update the database and force Arch Linux update using command:

$ sudo pacman -Syyuu

Once the update is finished, reboot your system. That's it. You have now restored all packages to the previous specific date (In our case it's 18 August 2017). Again, I warn you - having outdated packages is not recommended.

Related Read: 

• Systemback – Restore Ubuntu Desktop and Server to previous state

Hope this helps.

Reference:

• Arch Linux Wiki