Updates & Cleanup

The terminal names each update check and snapshot stage while it runs. If everything is up to date, the message stays visible for three seconds before the terminal closes.

Open System > Maintenance. Review terminal output and keep independent backups before system changes. Snapshot protection is not an off-disk backup.

System Update first checks official packages with checkupdates in a separate temporary database, AUR packages (including development packages), and user Flatpaks. When all checks confirm no updates, it exits without snapshots, upgrades or a restart prompt. If a check fails or a tool is missing, the normal update workflow continues.

Update

Update > System Update is the normal complete package-update workflow. On a configured fresh EITR distro, it verifies snapshot support and creates pre/post snapshots with boot archives. If protection fails, no upgrade begins. An existing Arch desktop without the distro policy does not require this setup just to update. System Update also updates apps installed from Flatpak, such as GeForce NOW; a Flatpak failure is reported without undoing the system update.

Before upgrading, System Update (and the Pacman updates under Advanced) checks Arch Linux's news for posts since your last upgrade. Arch uses them to announce upgrades that need a manual step. When there is news, it shows the titles and links and asks Continue the update? [y/N]: Enter cancels before anything changes, so you can read the post first. Without news, or without internet, it just continues.

Update > Update Channel lists both channels with yours marked; choosing the other asks for your password in a terminal and switches. It chooses where Eitr's own updates come from. Stable, the default, gets them once they have been tried. Testing gets new builds as soon as they are published, to try changes early; everything else still comes from Arch. Switching back to stable keeps a newer Eitr version until stable catches up. From a terminal: eitr channel shows it, eitr channel testing or eitr channel stable switches.

If an update leaves the computer unable to start, the boot guard undoes it: when two starts in a row after an update never reach the login screen, the next start restores the system and boot files from just before the update and restarts. Your home folder is not touched, and the next login tells you what happened. It works on computers installed with the Eitr installer; see Recovery & Snapshots for the details.

Home folder snapshots keep earlier versions of your own files: turn them on in System > Maintenance > Snapshots > Home Folder Snapshots. They are taken every hour for a day and every day for a week, and the oldest go when the disk gets full; caches, Downloads, VM disks and games are left out. To get a file back, choose Restore a File or Folder, type its path and pick a time. The old version appears next to the current one, so nothing is replaced.

Update > Advanced offers Pacman + Yay, Pacman, and Yay (AUR). These intentionally do not create automatic snapshots. Direct pacman/yay commands also bypass the protected workflow. Flatpaks, development runtimes and separate home data are not covered by root snapshots.

Avoid partial Arch upgrades. Read package prompts rather than accepting an unexpected removal blindly. Successful update tasks close; failures remain visible so you can troubleshoot rather than lose their output.

After a successful update, a notification asks to finish it when needed: Restart now after kernel, firmware, microcode, systemd, glibc, graphics driver or disk-encryption updates, or Log out now after desktop updates such as EITR, Hyprland, Quickshell, Walker or PipeWire. Later keeps working; the new versions take effect at the next restart or login.

Cleanup and snapshots

Cleanup runs its maintenance workflow and keeps the report open for reading. Review what it proposes; do not treat every orphan package as unused. Snapshots offers the existing Snapper status/configuration workflows. Read Recovery & Snapshots for supported layouts and bootloader limits.

Factory reset

Only a supported distro install with its first-login restore point can reset. That private baseline is separate from ordinary Snapper lists and cleanup. Root can still delete it, and disk failure can destroy it. Two separate warnings and a typed confirmation are required. Read Factory Reset for exactly what Erase Everything and Keep My Files preserve.

Power

Main > Power and Control Center > General expose Lock, Logout, Suspend, Reboot and Shutdown. Save work first. These are actions, not simulated demonstrations.