Has anyone tried this??? I’d like to know before I lay waste to the country-side…
BACKUP & RESTORE ARCH SYSTEM
Back up the pacman database
The following command can be used to back up the local pacman database:
$ tar -cjf pacman_database.tar.bz2 /var/lib/pacman/local
Store the backup pacman database file on one or more offline media, such as a USB stick, external hard drive, or CD-R.
The database can be restored by moving the pacman_database.tar.bz2 file into the / directory and executing the following command:
# tar -xjvf pacman_database.tar.bz2