Alt text: O'RLY? generated book cover with a donkey, navy blue accent, header: "It's only free if you don't value your time", title: "Handling Arch Linux Failures", subtitle: "Mom, please cancel my today's agenda!"
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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I really don't get these memes. In about 9 years of daily use on multiple systems I never had anything break beyond a multitude of failures to update with pacman - all of which could be fixed within minutes - and in the early years having to restart my system every couple of months because it stopped recognizing USB devices - after many rounds of updates mind you. I've had more frequent troubles with windows. How did Arch get this bad rep?
Because so many people love it and make a point of its 'brilliance', so it's funny to take it down a peg.
Myself, long ago, I moved from Arch to Ubuntu partly for ease of downloads on bad internet in Asia (in-country package mirror, and obviously less downloads overall); and partly because I didn't want my time and mental energy to be 'on call' for a random breakage from an upgrade. Breakages were occasional for me, and normally easily fixable, but took immediate time and effort.
I still think Arch is great, but I've got through some distro hops to end up currently on Mint, from wanting stability + a couple of binaries that are published for Ubuntu and not other distros.
Was tempted by NixOS or Guix, but... not just yet.
I've tried a couple rolling distros (including Arch), and they always "broke" after ~6 months to a year. Both times because an update would mess up something with my proprietary GPU drivers, IIRC. Both times, I would just install a different distro, because it would've probably took me longer to figure out what the issue was and fix it. I'm currently just using Debian stable, lol.
Same here. Switched to Arch in 2015 so I am also coming up on the 9 year mark. I have had very few issues, and the ones I have had were usually my fault for doing something stupid. I used Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu previously and compared to those Arch is a dream. Hence why I've stuck with it for so long now.
Most likely old folk(tm) I used Arch during the migration from init to systemd (2009-2013). Oh boy did things like to go boom at unforeseen moments. Like random segfaults after package updates, disappearing as suddenly as they started.
But admittedly after ~2013 Arch stabilised extremely compared to before. I remember having discussions around 2014 with people surprised that they didn't have update-introduced issues with their Arch install for 2 years at that time. Most of them never again until today.
Also: new users After aforementioned stabilisation period I got to know recently started Linux users who just did wired shit. Like accidentally deleting all kernel images on a Luks encrypted system or using unusual hardware which by chance Ubuntu or Fedora supported out of the box but would require kernel patches for Arch. They wanted to learn and they did learn but always perceived Arch as "more complicated" than the alternatives. But most of that was imo not the fault of Arch.
That's because arch is very old and back in the days it was prone to breakage. Ironically, it is now much more stable and easy to maintain than an Ubuntu derivative but people will still recommend Mint to beginners for some reason.
Because beginners have no idea about OS architecture concepts. If they are a true beginner coming from Windows or MacOS they may not understand things like the Linux boot process. Of course they can read the Arch install procedure which I’ve heard is excellent, but many people are easily intimidated by documentation and often view computers as a tool that should just work out of the box without them needing to understand it. Mint is an attempt at making that happen. Obviously, once you start to modify your Mint install alot you are going to run into issues, and a highly modified or customized system is where distros like Arch and Tumbleweed actually become easier to maintain. I’d argue Mint is a natural first step to the Linux pipeline. People who only need a web browser will probably stop there, while others will continue to explore distros that better fit their needs.
Good distros:
Agree?
swap gentoo with nixos
Do you compile yourself on nixOS as well? Does it really need more time to maintain, than arch? Isn’t that the config file distro where the package manager installs packages listed there? I never tried that one yet, so l was not able to add it where it would belong, and don’t know if can be considered "good" as the other in the list.
All in all, if it makes it in my list, I don’t know if it goes between Arch and gentoo or between Arch and endeavourOS 🤔 but it definitely would not replace one on the list, but added to it somewhere.
The key word here being I
Same here. 10 years on my laptop and it broke only once: I accidentally closed the terminal where the initramfs was installed. So my mistake. I could fix it by using an arch install on an USB and my knowledge of how to install the system, since I did it myself, by hand.
well in this particular case it's initramfs' fault for not designing for all-or-nothing atomicity (a operation either completes fully or not at all). which you can work around with a terminal multiplexer where a session can be re-attached later in such cases btw.
Thanks, the multiplexer idea is actually really good.
Having Said that, In my particular case it was actually my fault.
Do you use the AUR? That might make the difference.
Yep, I have a lot of AUR packages installed. Never had any problems besides needing to remove a package once to resolve some dependency issues.
the real question is whether you use
gitvariants. Which is another way of not making arch (and Gentoo) certainly not free as in free beer, especially if you live in Europe and need to deal with those outrageous energy prices. btw imo one should be suspicious of projects with long tagged release cadence since it's usually a sign of technical debt and the need to look for alternatives.Hmm, I think I broke my X11 server with an update more than once.
I see Wayland's flaws but X is such a bloated piece of hardly maintainable spaghetti code that it is sadly beyond saving or prospects for anything in terms of significant improvement
Maybe your "could be fixed within minutes" is someone else's "took hours to figure out how to fix when I was actually supposed to be working"?
Nah, I usually find the solution on the arch website. If that doesn't work, it's in the forum - which is usually the first search result on all major search engines for any given pacman problem. Once you've found the solution it's hardly more than just copy-pasting it.
If you follow the manual installation at the end you know which package do what in your system. When i use a ready to use distro (i have a endeavouros for my daily) you have to invest more time in your error resolution because you have to analyse what your distro use.
No it's actually very simple stuff. Arch is surprisingly stable and easy to manage, and had been for the better part of a decade