this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
240 points (95.8% liked)
Linux
48331 readers
644 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I had a huge problem with Arch because of the rolling release deal. I just can't handle the responsibility of updating packages every single day, even with automation.
When I install an operating system, I want it to just work, and I want their repositories to have lots and lots of software. Most distros do this, but none do it as well as one of the major Debian-family distros like Ubuntu or Mint. Fedora is quite nice as well, and I could probably daily drive it without issue, I just see no reason to change over to it since Ubuntu has me totally covered. And it is basically like this for me with every other distro: I have to think, "why would I switch? What benefit would it provide me over what I have right now." The answer is always "nothing important," so I stick with Ubuntu.
I considered using Guix because its package manager is truly a revolutionary new technology. But using it as a package manager, I can see a lot of the packages and default configurations just aren't quite to the point of "just works" yet. Still, I hope someday to switch to Guix as my daily driver.
Then don't. You can just as well choose to update once per week or whenever.
Every day is something of an exaggeration, but if you don't keep a rolling release up-to-date regularly (like once a week), packages start to break. And this gets to be a problem, especially if I don't keep a computer always on, or if I keep postponing updates because my laptop is not connected to the Internet at the schedule time. There are a dozens reasons why I miss regular updates, but the point is, it should not bork my system if I do miss updates for a while.
Those are packaging bugs then. With proper packaging everything updates seamslessly. Outside of SteamOS I'm not a user of Arch-derived distributions but I am a user of openSUSE TW which is a rolling release and I have one old notebook for a specific task I need to do maybe twice a year and updating was never a problem and installing a package triggers updating all affected dependencies.
Now I can see why people like openSUSE.
Yeah, I have definitely run across lots of Arch packaging bugs. They seem to give up making packages backward compatible after some length of time, that or their testing procedures are not as thorough as that of openSUSE. It is understandable, making a rolling release backward compatible for long periods of time can be fairly challenging. Although Nix OS and Guix OS have solved this problem.
Why do you think you need to update packages on Arch every single day?
It was just a bit of hyperbole, I don't actually mean every single day. I mean if you don't keep Arch up-to-date on a regular basis, packages tend to break, and then you need to re-install the OS or jump through a few hoops to repair the broken packages and their dependencies. Diligent regular updates is not a terrible mental burden, but a burden none-the-less, so using point release OS like Mint or Ubuntu are just easier.
Rolling releases aren't a problem for computers that are always on, you can automate the software updates. But for computers that sometimes get put in a closet for a bit and then taken back out, the operating system stops working after a software update.