When upgrading Arch Linux, the typical command used is:
1pacman -Syu
If you’re using AUR packages (for example, with yay), especially *-git versions that track bleeding-edge development, you may have noticed how long upgrades can take. These packages are often rebuilt from source every time you update, which can seriously slow down the process.
Recently, I ran into this issue with the vlc-git package, which I installed to try out the upcoming VLC 4.0 release.
The compile time was significant, and it made my usual system upgrades feel painfully slow.
As the typical *-git packages also track development progress, these updates might even be frequent and can break the package.
To avoid this, you can exclude specific packages from being upgraded. This is particularly helpful for AUR packages that are time-consuming to build and not mission-critical.
To do this, edit your /etc/pacman.conf using your favourite text editor and add (or uncomment) the following line:
IgnorePkg = vlc-git
You can also list multiple packages by separating them with spaces:
IgnorePkg = vlc-git some-other-package another-one
This tells pacman to skip those packages when running pacman -Syu.
Even yay will read this file and ignore these packages.
Be careful when using IgnorePkg.
Skipping updates can lead to broken dependencies or missing security fixes.
I strongly recommend only using this for AUR packages—and only when you truly understand the implications.
Never ignore core or security-relevant packages.