W LinuxDocumentation

Keeping W up to date

W has one native update path built on pacman and yay. There are no third-party update managers. Every upgrade transaction is snapshotted automatically (snap-pac), so an update is always reversible — see the FAQ and Recovery.

The w-update command

  • w-update (or w-update upgrade) — interactive full upgrade: repository and AUR packages in one pass. It runs without --noconfirm on purpose — you review the package list and AUR build diffs before anything is applied. When the kernel changed it offers a reboot at the end, and that reboot closes your windows gracefully first, so unsaved work still asks for confirmation.
  • w-update check — checks for repository and AUR updates without root and remembers the result. Never run a bare pacman -Sy; W's checker uses a private temporary database instead.
  • w-update status — the last recorded status.
  • w-update news — the latest Arch Linux news items. Read this before a large upgrade; it surfaces the rare manual-intervention announcements.
  • w-update enable / disable / interval [minutes] — per-user control of the background checker that keeps the badge in the bar current.
  • w-update plan — a read-only preflight: what a repo upgrade would touch, pending AUR builds, whether a kernel change means a reboot, free disk space.

Where you see updates

  • The bar shows an updates block with a count once updates are available.
  • The Hub → System shows the same counter and, after an upgrade that requires it, a "reboot pending" hint.
  • Clicking the bar block (or the Updates tile in the Hub) opens w-update in a terminal.
  • New releases of pack engines (comfyui, invokeai) are not in that count and are never installed by w-update — they show in Hub → Packs, in w-update status, and as a note at the end of w-update. See the packs guide.

W-specific /etc files get their .pacnew reconciled automatically by a pacman hook; third-party .pacnew files stay manual, and w-update points them out.

If an update goes wrong

  • A failed download is most often mirror trouble: w-mirrors status and w-mirrors sync re-rank and refresh the mirrorlist; then retry.
  • If the system misbehaves after an upgrade, reboot into the pre-upgrade snapshot: the boot menu (GRUB or Limine, depending on the install) lists snapshots, and Recovery walks the restore step by step. W also ships a copy of that page on disk, so it is readable even when the system does not boot.

The update channel of W itself

w-update upgrades packages; the distribution's own configuration travels the w-sync channel (edge) — see w-sync check and the update chapter of the FAQ.

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