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.

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

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.

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.

We plan to move `glibc` and its friends to stable later today, Feb 3. After installing the update, the Discord client will show a red warning that the installation is corrupt. This issue has been fixed in the Discord canary build. If you rely on audio connectivity, please use the canary build, login via browser or the flatpak version until the fix hits the stable Discord release. There have been no reports that (written) chat connectivity is affected. UPDATE: The issue has been fixed in Discord `0.0.84-1`.

Arch Linux hasn't had a license for any package sources (such as PKGBUILD files) in the past, which is potentially problematic. Providing a license will preempt that uncertainty. In RFC 40 we agreed to change all package sources to be licensed under the very liberal 0BSD license. **This change will not limit what you can do with package sources**. Check out the RFC for more on the rationale and prior discussion. Before we make this change, we will provide contributors with a way to voice any objections they might have. Starting on 2024-11-19, over the course of a week, contributors will receive a single notification email listing all their contributions. * If you receive an email and agree to this change, there is no action required from your side. * If you do not agree, please reply to the email and we'll find a solution together. If you contributed to Arch Linux packages before but didn't receive an email, please contact us at package-sources-licensing@archlinux.org.

With the release of version 7.0.0 pacman has added support for downloading packages as a separate user with dropped privileges. For users with local repos however this might imply that the download user does not have access to the files in question, which can be fixed by assigning the files and folder to the `alpm` group and ensuring the executable bit (`+x`) is set on the folders in question. $ chown :alpm -R /path/to/local/repo Remember to merge the .pacnew files to apply the new default. Pacman also introduced a change to improve checksum stability for git repos that utilize `.gitattributes` files. This might require a one-time checksum change for `PKGBUILD`s that use git sources.

After upgrading to `openssh-9.8p1`, the existing SSH daemon will be unable to accept new connections (see https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/openssh/-/issues/5). When upgrading remote hosts, please make sure to restart the sshd service using `systemctl try-restart sshd` right after upgrading. We are evaluating the possibility to automatically apply a restart of the sshd service on upgrade in a future release of the openssh-9.8p1 package.

Recently we held our leader election, and the previous Project Leader Levente "anthraxx" Polyák ran again while no other people were nominated for the role. As per our election rules he is re-elected for a new term. The role of of the project lead within Arch Linux is connected to a few responsibilities regarding decision making (when no consensus can be reached), handling financial matters with SPI and overall project management tasks. **Congratulations to Levente and all the best wishes for another successful term! 🥳**

The vm.max_map_count parameter will be increased from the default `65530` value to `1048576`. This change should help address performance, crash or start-up issues for a number of memory intensive applications, particularly for (but not limited to) some Windows games played through Wine/Steam Proton. Overall, end users should have a smoother experience out of the box with no expressed concerns about potential downsides in the related proposal on arch-dev-public mailing list. This `vm.max_map_count` increase is introduced in the `2024.04.07-1` release of the filesystem package and will be effective right after the upgrade. Before upgrading, in case you are already setting your own value for that parameter in a `sysctl.d` configuration file, either remove it (to switch to the new default value) or make sure your configuration file will be read with a higher priority than the `/usr/lib/sysctl.d/10-arch.conf` file (to supersede the new default value).

With the release of mkinitcpio v38, several hooks previously provided by Arch packages have been moved to the mkinitcpio upstream project. The hooks are: systemd, udev, encrypt, sd-encrypt, lvm2 and mdadm_udev. To ensure no breakage of users' setup occurs, temporary conflicts have been introduced into the respective packages to prevent installing packages that are no longer compatible. The following packages needs to be upgraded together: * mkinitcpio 38-3 * systemd 255.4-2 * lvm2 2.03.23-3 * mdadm 4.3-2 * cryptsetup 2.7.0-3 Please note that the `mkinitcpio` flag `--microcode`, and the `microcode` option in the preset files, has been deprecated in favour of a new `microcode` hook. This also allows you to drop the microcode `initrd` lines from your boot configuration as they are now packed together with the main initramfs image.

We are making `dbus-broker` our default implementation of D-Bus, for improved performance, reliability and integration with systemd. For the foreseeable future we will still support the use of `dbus-daemon`, the previous implementation. Pacman will ask you whether to install `dbus-broker-units` or `dbus-daemon-units`. We recommend picking the default. For a more detailed rationale, please see our RFC 25.

We are happy to announce that the migration of the bugtracker to GitLab is done! 🥳 Thanks to everyone who has helped during the migration! This means the issue tracker and merge requests on the GitLab package repos are now enabled. The old bugtracker will subsequently be closed down. For archiving reasons there will be a static copy so that links (for example the randomly picked Task #56716) are still stable, migrated bugs have a closing comment pointing to the new URL on GitLab. Packaging bugs are now opened on the repo hosting the corresponding packaging sources, the "Add a new Bug" button on the package page on archlinux.org will automatically direct you to the correct place to open the issue. The workflow afterwards is mostly the same, first our Bug Wranglers will have a look at the issues and triage them, and then they will be handed over to the respective Package Maintainers to fix. A list of all issues can be found here. If you do not have an account for GitLab already (which authenticates against our SSO service), please write us a mail with your desired username to accountsupport@archlinux.org as advised in the banner.

We are introducing a change in JDK/JRE packages of our distro. This is triggered from the way a JRE is build in modern versions of Java (>9). We are introducing this change in Java 21. To sum it up instead of having JDK and JRE packages coexist in the same system we will be making them conflict. The JDK variant package includes the runtime environment to execute Java applications so if one needs compilation and runtime of Java they need only the JDK package in the future. If, on the other hand, they need just runtime of Java then JRE (or jre-headless) will work. This will (potentially) require a manual user action during upgrade: * If you have both JDK and JRE installed you can manually install the JDK with `pacman -Sy jdk-openjdk && pacman -Su` and this removes the JRE related packages. * If you have both JRE and JRE-headless you will need to choose one of them and install it manually since they would conflict each other now. * If you only have one of the JDK/JRE/JRE-headless pacman should resolve dependencies normally and no action is needed. At the moment this is only valid for the upcoming JDK 21 release, with other versions to follow.