Raspberry Pi - Can not update the system

[sdjf]

Try deleting whatever packages are on pacman's cache. If any of them are out of date, their presence there could interfere with package installation.

/var/cache/pacman/pkg/

If you want to save these packages, just move them to another directory, but get them out of the way.

But I wish you would point us to the thread elsewhere that you are talking about, and you might consider posting the output of one failed installation somewhere like pastebin so we can possibly see clues you may have missed about what is going wrong.

Another approach that is not the best solution, but a workaround, would be to have wget download the files you need and then use pacman -U to install them. That way you can separate out the host issue from the installation issue.

I have gone into great detail about how to do that in my page about offline package installation with pacman:

http://sdjf.esmartdesign.com/raspberrypi/pacman.html

The page is written from the perspective of no networking or online access, but you can pick what applies and skip the rest.

[WarheadsSE]

!badpastebin

[Mikeclark]

In an attempt to respond to your suggestions, sjdf:
1. My version of /var/caches/pacman/pkg is listed as an empty directory;
2, The other forum I mentioned WAS shown in the raspberrypi.org website, but has been withdrawn, presumably because there has been no input since March this year, and there was no resolution.
3. Here is what I get when I issue 'pacman -Syu':

:: Synchronising package data bases....
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from mirror.archlinuxarm.org: Could not resolve host: mirror,archlinuxarm.org
error: failed to update core (download library error)

This is repeated for 'extra'', 'community', 'alarm' and 'aur', at which point:
error: failed to synchronize any databases
error: failed to init transaction (download library error)

And the same thing happens with the Aachen, Berlin, Roubaix and Netherlands mirrors. Not very enlightening!

[pepedog]

It's probably a dns resolution problem. What does ifconfig, and cat /etc/resolve.conf show?

[Mikeclark]

Thank you, pepedog, BUT:
The resolv.conf file just contains the comment ´# Generated by resolvconf´, and
ifconfig gets me details of my eth0 connection, and the l0 loopback. What should I be looking for there wrt dns resolution?

[WarheadsSE]

should have a line like the following, should be added by dhcp.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'nameserver 8.8.8.8'')

[Mikeclark]

Curiouser and Curiouser

I have set up the resolv.conf file, as WarheadSE suggested, and now I get, in response to 'pacman -Syu':

error: failed retrieving file 'extra.db'/'community.db'/etc. from mirror.archlinuxarm.org : The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found

AND, now:

error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db (etc.): unrecognized archive format.

My Pi is set up for Ethernet connection to my home router, with a static IP address. This was done in accordance with the instructions "Using a static IP address" listed in the "Network Configuration Wiki". These instructions, for creation of the /etc/systemd/system/network.service file, include the entry "Description=Wireless Static IP Connectivity". This does NOT work! Using "Description=Network Static IP" does, apart from the pac-mania.
So, if this is simply a dns resolution problem, what else do I need to do to cure it?. In scouring the Internet, I find that our Poor Relations, the ArchLinuxNOTArm gang, have also encountered this problem, with no clear solution.

[sdjf]

I know nothing about accessing the web through a local network, my Pi has it's own modem, and that simplifies things tremendously.

I think there is no sense of you trying to get pacman to download anything until you can ping google from your Pi!

If putting IP addresses in the resolv.conf files might solve your internet access problem (and I have no clue if it will as this is not a direct connection), then just stick some standard name server IP addresses on two separate lines. Here are the ones I have in my resolv files although using ppp, there is one file per dialup profile:

nameserver 64.136.173.8
nameserver 64.136.164.66

And I seem to recall that 8.8.8.8 is supposed to be a good one. EDIT: And I see someone else mentioned using it, but I think having at least 2 is a good idea.

You certainly could just update using offline techniques, but I understand you want the Pi to do so with online access.

[Mikeclark]

Thank you, sdjf, but:
I can ping www.google.com
I can ping 8.8.8.8 - which is another Google site, apparently set for ping-ing purposes
I can ping all of the mirror sites which pacman doesn't like, and
I can ping other devices on my home network, including my other Pi, which runs Debian and Raspbian with no download problems whatsoever. I now have two Pi's, running headless via ssh, into an Ubuntu client, which also downloads without demur. The problem is somewhere in the pacman and/or systemd and/or dhcp relationship, I think.
Curiously, though, pacman DID download and install gcc for me, and it seems to work perfectly.

[WarheadsSE]

pacman -Syy and try again? You might need to clear the cache as well.