Arch has no reason to exist as almost all of it’s benefits are replicated with nix without having your system fail to boot because you dared to update it.
I decided to dump arch when I was working in a foreign country for a month, had bad internet, and had to weigh whether -Syu or -S would be more likely to break my system. Shit’s way too stressful.
Run pacman -Syu, reboot, and it fails to boot. Had it happen many times with arch and derivatives on multiple devices. It’s far more likely to happen if you don’t update for like a month.
Also have a copy of pacman-static somewhere so that you can fix your shit in case of a partial upgrade (and trust me, it can go horribly wrong)
And thirdly, Arch is meant as a power user distro – despite this abhorrent popularity it has gained, the fact of the matter remains that you need to know the system inside and out, if you make your arch system unable to boot… Don’t use arch
This is not my attempt at elitism. Arch was never meant to be a hassle free distro and it sure as shit is not one.
There are many maintenance-free distros you can use instead. Can I offer you a Debian in these trying times?
Also have a copy of pacman-static somewhere so that you can fix your shit in case of a partial upgrade (and trust me, it can go horribly wrong)
Oh I know, I quickly learned to never update it without having live media nearby to arch-chroot with.
if you make your arch system unable to boot… Don’t use arch
The only thing I did to make it unbootable is to update it. Going by that logic nobody should use it.
This is not my attempt at elitism. Arch was never meant to be a hassle free distro and it sure as shit is not one.
I definitely agree, that’s why I’m commenting against dumbasses suggesting it to beginners. Especially when they glorify AUR.
Can I offer you a Debian in these trying times?
No need, I already landed on MX + nix after 2+ years of arch. Nix unstable gives me all of the benefits of arch (except for the DE) and then plenty more on top. Different downsides, but far less stressful. I’m
You need to keep the update log and go through the whole thing and see if something needs reconfiguring. Sounds shitty? Yeah, that’s why I stopped using Arch and Gentoo despite being a veteran
Nowadays I just install Debian or some derivative and call it a damn day. Unless you need some exotic setup (and those are more suited to Gentoo or Slackware anyway)
Oh I had a far simpler method: update and it fails to boot? Rollback and try updating again in a week. It usually works then, but I had to wait a bit more a couple of times.
The only exception was that bad GRUB release. I think that’s the only update fail that absolutely required arch-chroot.
Arch has no reason to exist as almost all of it’s benefits are replicated with nix without having your system fail to boot because you dared to update it.
The gamble is the fun part tho
I decided to dump arch when I was working in a foreign country for a month, had bad internet, and had to weigh whether -Syu or -S would be more likely to break my system. Shit’s way too stressful.
What the fuck do you do to have this happen?
Run
pacman -Syu
, reboot, and it fails to boot. Had it happen many times with arch and derivatives on multiple devices. It’s far more likely to happen if you don’t update for like a month.Not updating in a month?! What kind of arch user is that?
A dumb one using Arch on a backup media device. At least that one dodged the bad grub release.
I’ve had it also happen on the main device that was updated multiple times a week.
First off, run
Syyu
, the old arch gods demand itAlso have a copy of pacman-static somewhere so that you can fix your shit in case of a partial upgrade (and trust me, it can go horribly wrong)
And thirdly, Arch is meant as a power user distro – despite this abhorrent popularity it has gained, the fact of the matter remains that you need to know the system inside and out, if you make your arch system unable to boot… Don’t use arch
This is not my attempt at elitism. Arch was never meant to be a hassle free distro and it sure as shit is not one.
There are many maintenance-free distros you can use instead. Can I offer you a Debian in these trying times?
Oh I know, I quickly learned to never update it without having live media nearby to arch-chroot with.
The only thing I did to make it unbootable is to update it. Going by that logic nobody should use it.
I definitely agree, that’s why I’m commenting against dumbasses suggesting it to beginners. Especially when they glorify AUR.
No need, I already landed on MX + nix after 2+ years of arch. Nix unstable gives me all of the benefits of arch (except for the DE) and then plenty more on top. Different downsides, but far less stressful. I’m
You need to keep the update log and go through the whole thing and see if something needs reconfiguring. Sounds shitty? Yeah, that’s why I stopped using Arch and Gentoo despite being a veteran
Nowadays I just install Debian or some derivative and call it a damn day. Unless you need some exotic setup (and those are more suited to Gentoo or Slackware anyway)
Oh I had a far simpler method: update and it fails to boot? Rollback and try updating again in a week. It usually works then, but I had to wait a bit more a couple of times.
The only exception was that bad GRUB release. I think that’s the only update fail that absolutely required arch-chroot.