It was Perplexity who asked me to check /var/lib/paru/sync/*.db, so I file that under hallucinations and there is no such weird path at all. But also no ~./config/paru directory:
╰─> ls -la /var/lib/paru/sync/
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/paru/sync/': No such file or directory
╰─> ls -la ~./config/paru
ls: cannot access '/home/hc4a/.config/paru': No such file or directory
Here is pacman -Qi paru:
Installed From : cachyos
Name : paru
Version : 2.1.0-2
Description : Feature packed AUR helper
Architecture : x86_64
URL : https://github.com/morganamilo/paru
Licenses : GPL-3.0-or-later
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : git pacman libalpm.so>=14
Optional Deps : bat: colored pkgbuild printing [installed]
devtools: build in chroot and downloading pkgbuilds
Required By : None
Optional For : cachy-update octopi
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 7.85 MiB
Packager : CachyOS <admin@cachyos.org>
Build Date : Sun 09 Nov 2025 11:55:03 PM CET
Install Date : Wed 17 Dec 2025 02:55:06 PM CET
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Validated By : Signature
I assure you I did not do anything by myself (Edit: yes, I did ), I actually hardly use paru. My history reveals that the last paru things were:
Ah. Well then the weird extra db thing wasnt real.
That path was the reason for the bulk of my response above..
As to
If you dont have a conf in $HOME then maybe check the one at /etc/paru.conf?
Given your output I might wonder if you have set something like AurOnly.
( Which, to be fair, would not be a bad setup. I tend to keep things separated and use pacman with paru only for the AUR. The explicit locked config I could take or leave really. )
I dont know why you did it exactly, but I dont think thats the default.
But the reason I would do it would be to ensure the aur helper was only used for the AUR.
I know lots of folks on here tend to like firing paru as a catch-all solution but I’m more old-school and like pacman for the repos and aur helpers for their one purpose. ex;
sudo pacman -Syu && paru -Sua
That option would be in line with that kind of thinking.
Yeah that means kinit is not in the AUR (after already not being in the repos).
So it can be called a ‘super-alien’ of sorts.
If you dont have some known compelling reason to be keeping it and/or werent manually maintaining/installing it with some purpose .. if its just some old package .. then its been deprecated for how ever long and should probably be removed.
PS.
As to the epsonscan2 package message it means someone flagged the AUR package as out of date. It usually means it will be updated shortly.
Someone in the community flagged the PKGBUILD (etc) as needing updates. Probably some user noticed a newer version is available but the AUR package has not been changed to reflect it. Anyone can do this. And it is supposed to indicate that the maintainer needs to do something. If or when they do then you will get an update to the AUR package.
Its probably not the shortest list but not monstrous either;
pacman -Qet
That will print explicitly installed packages not needed by anything else.
I would not probably say they are all safe to remove .. but it would be a list to review.
( To find some packages in it that maybe you forgot about installing. )
It just may contain some packages worth considering for removal or remembering you dont need or similar. The majority will likely be ones you want to keep.
Something like kinit for example would have been printed here if it had not already been removed.
While something like base obviously is a must have.
It may be illustrative to point out that explicitly installed packages (and especially for our purposes here ones not required by anything else) cannot be orphans.
So something like kinit that would have otherwise been an orphan thrice over three months or more ago .. it languished due to being explicitly installed at some point.
Orphans (pacman -Qdt) should be reviewed but more default to being unneeded (or needing other management to remove the orphan status).
While the list above (pacman -Qet) can be reviewed from time to time to check for any forgotten leftovers. That one package we installed on a whim that one time. But we more default to them being needed - most of them ostensibly being explicitly installed for a reason.
So something like kinit that would have otherwise been an orphan thrice over three months or more ago .. it languished due to being explicitly installed at some point.
I believe it was Cachy itself installing all these things on initial installation in June 2025. Because sure, I installed a lot of those like filezilla and kid3, but most of those packages come from the Cachy installation.
Maybe the “info” about 
), I actually hardly use 
I’ll kick 