this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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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.

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I finally bought a thinkpad (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 day ago by Bluefruit@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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And of course I'm installing Linux on it. Install went well, even the fingerprint sensor built in to the laptop works.

Mostly this will be a school and DND machine but always nice to have a functional laptop for whatever else I may need it for.

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[–] T4V0@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you upgrade often, you're more likely to run into buggy releases. Just upgrade less often and reduce your likelihood of installing buggy latest releases. Just like Debian and other such distros do. You're in charge on Arch.

While it’s true you can do that, then why choose Arch in the first place? One of the key elements in the philosophy for Arch is: Modernity, i.e. to always have the latest version to be the stable version, aka the rolling release model. You can choose not to upgrade, but it can be a immense footgun. There’s a reason it’s harder to upgrade between release versions in distros like Debian.

Besides being a stable release doesn’t guarantee no bugs either, only that they don’t change. Meaning as long as the bugs are minor or can be bypassed, it’s still considered stable.

This is only one way of mitigating risk that you can do, but I do concede that Arch does not take every precaution that other distros do to ensure that broken packages are not released. They do however follow up with news posts if there's an issue, with info about what to do. This is an awesome thing.

No doubt, but you do have to keep track of this. People non familiar with it may find their systems temporarily borked if they don’t. One good mention for those of interest is their incredible documentation, it can also be used as a reference for other distros too.

But still, I haven't had an issue in over a decade, upgrading packages probably once a week or so.

There's no "maintenance" other than what you create for yourself. This Arch = "maintenance" (whatever that entails in everyone's mind) nonsense has got to be put to bed.

In over a decade using Arch, I have encountered bugs or changes when upgrading packages, following a similar upgrade cadence. I also used packages that have been deprecated from the official repository, and then maintaned by users in the AUR. These are things that break the users experience and require maintenance. Regardless if it’s a bug or not, or if it happens once or twice a year, the user has to pay close attention.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

then why choose Arch in the first place? One of the key elements in the philosophy for Arch is: Modernity, i.e. to always have the latest version to be the stable version,

Everyone has their reasons for choosing the distro that they choose.

I'll copy paste what I wrote in reply to someone else with this type of argument:

I didn't choose Arch because of that. I chose Arch because I got to decide what to install on my system, from basically nothing. I get to choose how lean or thicc my system is. That was my motivation. And pacman just seemed like such a sensible package manager after reading its manual. 😙👌 […] You decide, just like you can decide not to upgrade to the latest point release from Debian if you don't want to.

Now, regarding:

but you do have to keep track of this.

And that isn't a hassle. You sign up to it when you install Arch. If you aren't willing to do that thing that takes a shorter time (loading up the Arch homepage) than actually issuing the upgrade command 😄, then yeah, Arch isn't for you. Let's concede that much, I suppose.

I also used packages that have been deprecated from the official repository, and then maintaned by users in the AUR. These are things that break the users experience and require maintenance.

Right, again, that's you creating maintenance for yourself. AUR is considered separate from the distro itself. I stand by my main point. 😁

[–] T4V0@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Everyone has their reasons for choosing the distro that they choose.

That’s fine I suppose, though there are other distros more fitting if latest version isn’t of concern.

And that isn't a hassle. You sign up to it when you install Arch. If you aren't willing to do that thing that takes a shorter time (loading up the Arch homepage) than actually issuing the upgrade command 😄, then yeah, Arch isn't for you. Let's concede that much, I suppose.

I didn’t need to do that, I just used a RSS feed reader directly from the Arch news. Now, for an regular user, it would be a learning experience to actually be aware of possible manual interventions, especially since Arch makes upgrading a breeze, it’s not a thing in other distros.

Right, again, that's you creating maintenance for yourself. AUR is considered separate from the distro itself. I stand by my main point. 😁

Actually, installing from the AUR is what helped me at the time, since the official software package was deprecated — removed from the main arch repository —, and I didn’t have time to repackage it myself. The deprecated package without a viable official replacement is what created a need to do system maintenance. And installing from the AUR was fine as long as you read the PKGBUILD, at least at the time. Regardless if either installing from the AUR, repackaging or downgrading the software were the solutions, it created friction with the end user. Which is fine for this particular distro, but for others in stable releases, it would be a major flaw.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I didn’t need to do that, I just used a RSS feed reader directly from the Arch news.

Nice, that's a great solution!

Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying about installing that thing from the AUR then, in your example. I get it now.

But to think that the deprecation was caused by... upgrading! 😆

We're very deep into this thread now and I'm sort of losing the plot, and it's very late here. But these anecdotes I find are quite rare. Surely this would be happening in a non-rolling release as well. If Arch deprecated a package, and Debian were to do so for the same reason (seems likely, perhaps?), the only difference is the time frame in which you have to/choose to deal with it. If it disappeared from the Debian repo, you'd have to find some way of replacing it yourself, too.

I might be misunderstanding you again, I feel. But I hope you see what I mean, in case I'm understanding the situation correctly.