How I maintain my Arch Linux installation

This is a simple guide I have made for when I need to do some maintenance on my Arch Linux system. I have collected these commands from various sources and recommendations from various posts about Arch Linux system maintenance.

These commands should help you keep your system up and running and also clean unused files and packages. Note that I use opendoas instead of sudo, so if you are using sudo, then replace doas with sudo. You will also need pacman-contrib for paccache

Check

Check for failed services
- systemctl --failed
Read the journal
- journalctl -b

Backup

Backup configuration files
Backup package list
- pacman -Qqe > pkglist.txt
Backup the Pacman database
- tar -cjf pacman_database.tar.bz2 /var/lib/pacman/local
Backup your user data

Update

Update your mirror lists
- reflector -n 20 --latest 50 --score 20 --sort rate --country 'United States,Brazil' | doas tee /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
- Obviously, if you prefer different mirrors, or live somewhere else, then change the arguments you give to reflector. These are just my preference.
Upgrade your system
- doas pacman -Syu
- paru
(optional) Deal with pacnew and pacmerge files
- pacdiff -s
Reboot

Clean

Check for old configuration files
- Look in the following directories:
  - ~/.config/ – where applications stores their configuration
  - ~/.local/share/ – old files may be lying there
Find broken symlinks
- find / -type d $ -path "/dev" -o -path "/proc" -o -path "/run" -o -path "/sys" $ -prune -o -xtype l -print
Check space used by journals
- journalctl --disk-usage
Check for large packages (warning: these commands may not work in the future)
- Non-AUR: pacman -Qei | awk '/^Name/{name=$3} /^Installed Size/{print $4$5, name}' | sort -h
- AUR: pacman -Qim | awk '/^Name/{name=$3} /^Installed Size/{print $4$5, name}' | sort -h
Check and remove orphan packages
- doas pacman -Qdtq
Clear caches
- Pacman cache: paccache -r
- .cache: rm -rf ~/.cache

Tips