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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 19th, 2023

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  • It’s always been bad practice to just blindly update software. That’s why we have different distros.

    Ubuntu and Mint hold your hand and make it easy for newcomers. Great way to dive into Linux. I completely agree these are great for “it just works” and no fuss. I’ve not had one break on me.

    Arch and Gentoo expect you to have experience and know what you’re doing. You build it up how you want it. That’s what makes these so great. But you need the experience and knowledge.

    I’ve personally tried openSUSE and in my opinion it feels like a good middle ground between both ends. In the past I’ve recommended Mint to get started, openSUSE once you’ve got experience, and then Arch for when you want total control.





  • Arch is not meant to be a daily driver if you’re expecting “shit just works” stability long term when you just blindly run updates. You have to understand what you’re updating and sometimes why.

    It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.

    If you want to use Arch, you need to invest in snapshots using rsync or dd. Given how it’s a rolling release, you should do this weekly. If something fucks up, grab all your logs and put them somewhere safe. Roll back and look at your logs to see what broke. Then apply updates as needed. You can ignore packages for quite a while. If you’re not smart enough to understand it now, you may in the future. It takes time and practice.

    Debian based is only “out of date” feature wise because they do a package freeze. They ensure stability before release. Updates are largely security related.