Why do people think Arch and its derivatives are unstable?
Posted by SaltyMaybe7887@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 126 comments
I see a lot of people in online forums and subreddits recommending against using Arch Linux and its derivatives. They claim that due to Arch Linux's rolling release model, updating your packages can randomly cause your system to break. I've used plain Arch Linux for years and recently switched to CachyOS, a derivative of Arch Linux. Not once have I experienced an issue from updating my packages. In fact, I'm willing to argue that more up-to-date packages reduces the likelihood of running into problems when using Linux, which is why I recommend Arch-based distributions with easy installers like EndeavourOS or CachyOS for new Linux users.
When I switched to Linux for the first time, my distribution of choice was Linux Mint Cinnamon. I chose it because it's relatively popular and has a similar look and feel to Windows. I had a pretty good experience with Linux Mint, so I recommended it to my dad when he wanted to switch to Linux too. However, when he used Linux Mint, his WiFi dongle didn't work and he couldn't connect to the WiFi. After a lot of time researching about the issue, I realized it was because the latest kernel in the Linux Mint repos was years out of date, and he needed a newer kernel version. This wouldn't have happened on an Arch-based distribution.
As a side note, I used to use Gentoo before I switched back to an Arch-based distribution because my Gentoo system was taking too much of my time to maintain. However, one thing I really like about Gentoo's package manager is that you can choose between using stable releases of packages or the latest versions. You can also choose to use stable packages globally and selectively install the "unstable" versions of packages of your choice.
yngseneca@reddit
I only have ever had issues with arch when updating very infrequently. Like if i fire up a laptop thats been unused for three months and update it there is a goood chance there will be a problem i'll need to deal with.
But doing weekly updates I've never had an issue.
bonch@reddit
It's actually wild that you seem to consider that okay.
EnnonGShamoi@reddit
You're so close, you can almost taste it. Doing updates at any time shouldn't result in problems in distros that are actually serious
Past-Pollution@reddit
A lot of "serious" stable release distros can have big problems when upgrading to a new point release. There's a reason why many people recommend doing complete reinstalls instead of upgrades on many of those distros. The build up of necessary config changes and other cruft can make a major upgrade of so many packages to a much newer version cause a lot of issues.
Rolling release distros like Arch do have that issue too, but it's a matter of preference whether you'd rather deal with small bite size fixes regularly or a much larger buildup of technical debt all at once.
RB5Network@reddit
“A lot” is a huge stretch here. It’s exceedingly rare this happens. Certainly, much more than Arch as well. That said, this isn’t something we should, in my opinion, accept as normal desktop usage. I could use Arch (I have extensively in the past) with minimal issues because I’m pretty on top of the software stack that makes up my desktop, but I certainly think Linux should be better about notifying the general public about configuration changes of software. (Like Wireplumber moving from Lua to .conf!)
That said, Linux really needs nice device management in GUI form. This in my mind is like the last big area that needs to happen before we could see Linux really start taking off past 10% desktop usage.
yngseneca@reddit
To be clear, the problems that you run into with arch i wouldnt really classify as serious, but they do require manual intervebtion to resolve. Usually i need to uninstall a dependency, run update, reinstall.
daemonpenguin@reddit
Except that it does. Major package updates are often not backward compatible. By definition rolling releases will break eventually because apps and libraries are not always compatible.
Also, Arch is occasionally unstable. There are often reviews and forum posts from people reporting updates broke their system.
LuisBelloR@reddit
6 years and counting,when is my arch going to break according to you?
copper_tunic@reddit
Try not updating for six months and then doing them all, like a casual user would. Arch explodes.
LuisBelloR@reddit
That's the point. arch is not for casual users. It's for people with brains. And what you mention I've done, I have 3 laptops and a desktop, one of my laptops was forgotten for over a year, I updated without problems, you should always read the news on arch's website, they are very clear warning of risks, if there were any.
Whatever people say, if your arch breaks it's because you weren't prepared for arch. People who have good habits and customs with Pacman and with the general maintenance of the system do not have these problems.
Generally, I see that fedora releases each new kernel version within a few days or hours, but since it is considered "more stable" nobody cries. On the other hand, arch takes up to 2 weeks to release the new kernel after it has been tested. Have you seen how long an arch kernel spends in the testing repository?
Here in this post I only see kids who couldn't handle a real distro, crying.
bonch@reddit
Holy crap, this could have come straight from that infamous Gentoo quotes website in the 2000s.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Lol four years for me. Literally nothing happened.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
I'm not doubting that this happens sometimes, but personally I've used Arch Linux and its derivatives for four years and I've never had an issue with any packages after updating my system, let alone having my system break. This is weird considering how much I see other people talk about experiencing this.
wintrmt3@reddit
Use as in a toy for home use, or do you run production systems on it?
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Neither a "toy" nor production systems. I use it on my desktop for gaming, programming, etc. and on my laptop for school work.
wintrmt3@reddit
That's why you don't get what's wrong with an unstable distro.
jinks@reddit
I'm running four production servers on Arch, most of them active for ~5 years (I tend to reinstall when changing hardware), how long until one of them breaks?
KrazyKirby99999@reddit
You might've skipped the update containing a grub issue a few months ago.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Can you link me to the Grub issue? I'm searching for it but I'm just getting stuff from years ago.
KrazyKirby99999@reddit
Turns out this was about a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_KHtK2b5cA
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Oh, I use systemd-boot. I'm curious though so I'll look into that issue.
derangedtranssexual@reddit
I remember making a project in chicken scheme and they released a new major version that broke backwards compatibility and it was just another update for arch
PraetorRU@reddit
Because it's true.
That's a common misconception, that if something hasn't happened with you, or your friends, it doesn't happen at all.
Yes, it's the other side of the coin for more stable distros, but it doesn't change the fact, that they're more tested and stable than rolling distros.
karuna_murti@reddit
It's also a myth
bonch@reddit
No, it isn't.
-NVLL-@reddit
Experiential biases aside, I had order of magnitude less crashes and bugs on rolling distros than stable consumer ones like Ubuntu, because of outdated repos and versions not receiving bugfixes. It would be interesting to have real data on that, because it seems it might not be an isolated experience. Not changing and being tested does not guarantee it behaves better relatively to another OS, even if it makes sense.
I have a Windows 98 station at work that was well tested for multiple decades now and did not change at all, being kept air gaped from anything else. It doesn't mean that it is more stable as in robust than a fast changing distro. The bugs are well known, but they are, nevertheless.
PraetorRU@reddit
Just another glaring example of experiental bias. Software is not like food, it's not getting rotten just because it's old in most cases. And stable distros like Ubuntu do provide bugfixes for the packages they provide, backporting from a newer versions if needed. Yes, outdated drivers may cause problems with a fresh hardware, but it's a known tradeoff.
-NVLL-@reddit
You just repeated what I inb4ed, nobody is saying that logical code rots or degrades.
Yes, that's the point, code does not rot but may become obsolete, or dependencies break on the partial updates.
In theory. In practice the user experience doesn't exactly track theory, because to deal with the same bug for years because the bugfixes for smaller things don't arrive is no better than the current chance of finding a new bug that will be corrected fast.
Sorry if I'm hurting some contribution or maintaining effort with my words, but currently I see no positive tradefoff regarding stability to ditch rolling on a consumer, non mission-critical personal system.
morganmachine91@reddit
You’re getting downvoted, but you’re right. I’ve been using Linux as my daily driver for 20 years. At first it was just Ubuntu, then other Debian derivatives. Switched to arch around 10 years ago.
Two huge issues drove me away from non-rolling-release distros: out of date packages, and undocumented package changes.
I remember my final straw was spending days trying to fix an issue with transmission-daemon on Ubuntu before finding out that the Ubuntu package changed how a configuration file was loaded. The manpage and all the docs I could find online still described the upstream behavior.
Just give me the software however the developers built it, as soon as a release is ready. If something breaks (which, for me, it virtually never does), I’ll either roll it back or restore a snapshot. I’d definitely prefer to fix my own issues with access to accurate documentation then trust that some package maintainers predicted my use case when they were tweaking the revision from 5 years ago that they’re releasing.
-NVLL-@reddit
People seem eager to throw the IT's textbook definition, this is known information and aggregates nothing, but I'm yet to see anyone who successfully used Arch telling Ubuntu behaves more predictably and frictionlessly.
This is a good case that may even change how we think about unstability. In dynamics systems there is dynamic stability, changing fast does not mean unstability outside software engineering. I wouldn't either throw OOP's argument outside the window nor go back to Ubuntu seeking any stability. There are other variables in quality control that are not the total time testing it and avoiding changes.
morganmachine91@reddit
This is exactly how I feel.
Particular-Brick7750@reddit
Cosigning, every time arch broke it was because of something I did (using -git packages, messing with my initramfs, changing my bootloader and forgetting to change the config, changing config files unnecessarily)
If you've ever looked at some of the bash scripts for arch stuff its clear that the development "budget" for arch is much lower than these big LTS distros and its mostly if not exclusively hobbyists and not people contracted by a company or employed to develop software. If arch is more stable than these distros with actual funding then clearly that's the sign of a problem.
Ubuntu, upon update, started a broken kubernetes systemd service at a time when I had NO IDEA what systemd even was or how to use it and caused my startup to be multiple minutes long. It made me deal with kernel bugs that have long been fixed. It's a complete chore to get new versions of software and when you do find a PPA or apt repo you can't even install anything because APT spontaneously combusts with dependency hell (x-1.0 requires y-1.1 but y-1.1 requires x-1.0, what the fuck)
Literally every time I've interacted with debian based distros I've dealt with complete cancer. I have NEVER had a bad experience with arch except for some minor issues with pacman-key and gpg keys. I have never had an update break excluding times I had the testing repo enabled. Recently I was helping my friend run a node program with WSL and the default distro is ubuntu. Instead of intervening and making him install fedora or arch I assumed it wouldn't be a problem. Guess what, nope! Ubuntu is shipping a node version so fucking old it was EOL'd in 2022 and it failed to run code from 2021! So I had to walk him through updating node with a sketchy third party repo and then apt broke so instead I have him install fedora and everything worked fine out of the box.
LTS distros are a complete mess and nonsensical the second you realize there's no redeeming qualities. On a rolling distro when a package has a breaking change you rollback, on a LTS distro when a sloppy backport causes bugs you can't roll forward because the packages depend on other new packages. So not only are you in a worse state when you have to intervene, you aren't protected from breaking changes (backports, even security ones cause bugs, and worse can introduce security vulnerabilities or not solve them correctly which is something malicious actors specifically look for when scary exploits are patched), but you miss out on new feature updates.
it's the perfect worst of all worlds release model.
small_tit_girls_pmMe@reddit
I never wear my seatbelt, hasn't caused me any problems!
bonch@reddit
That's DEFINITELY not true.
Subject-Air-7258@reddit
They wreck up their system, and then they blame it on the "arch instability"
johncate73@reddit
Because they don't use it properly btw.
Known-Watercress7296@reddit
Gentoo's binary now, you can run it like stable rolling binary Arch with all the power of portage where required.
No point compiling on Gentoo if you can survive on Arch without going insane.
TheEbolaDoc@reddit
The question is why you would want to use gentoo as a binary distribution..? Isn't the whole point of the distro to be source-based?
Known-Watercress7296@reddit
No
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
True, but a lot of Gentoo's binary packages are out of date. I might switch back to Gentoo if they get more up-to-date binary packages.
ahferroin7@reddit
You know, this is ALWAYS the line the Arch enthusiasts tout when somebody complains about an update breaking their system. It’s also just about the stupidest thing you can say. It’s like saying ‘I’ve never been struck by lightning before, therefore people cannot be struck by lightning.’. Just because some specific event that has a low probability of happening has never happened to you personally does not mean it cannot happen at all, it just means that it has never happened to you.
You mean as many people have experienced.
I run more than 60 VMs for cross-platform testing for work. All that happens on them other than the occasional test build is package updates and basic maintenance (stuff like ensuring log files don’t get out of hand). And out of those 60 VMs, Arch is consistently the problem child. It’s gotten better recently, but for years the Arch VM would have some significant issue about once every 6-8 weeks, usually a botched kernel upgrade that kept it from booting. Alpine, which uses essentially the same approach to managing installed kernels, never has an issue. Chimera, which is technically alpha-quality software still, never has an issue. Even Artix, which is functionally identical other than the init system and bootloader never has an issue.
I’m not alone in this either, there are plenty of people who have issues with Arch even for seemingly trivial use cases like mine, they just tend to get dismissed by Arch enthusiasts as being idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about. Yes, such cases are not exceptionally common, but they do exist, and Arch users like you are doing your own distro a disservice by refusing to acknowledge these cases.
Now, I’m not claiming that this is all just because of the rolling release model. I run Gentoo’s ‘unstable’ branch most places that I don’t explicitly need to run something else, so I’m no stranger to dealing with a fast-moving rolling release environment. If I had to blame anything it would probably be pacman and the numerous questionable design choices made there (most of the issues I’ve had with Arch that weren’t botched kernel updates would have never been issues if Pacman had more sensible default behavior in unusual circumstances), and possibly the mentality of the Arch maintainers. Some parts of that (such as, for example, the way pacman handles versioning of packages within repositories) are very definitely a result of the rolling release model though.
RandomXUsr@reddit
This question will be asked from newbs until the end of time.
Arch is a rolling distro, which uses the latest rolling/released packages.
The upstream packages, may introduce breaking changes from time to time. Depending on what changes are made; you may have to take action to prevent or correct some potential issues.
The other side of the coin, is your knowledge of the force. j/k
How well you know your system is far more important than a package that could introduce intermittent breakage. Often times the derivatives have their own customization or choices are made for you. This defeats the purpose of building your system on Archlinux.
klyith@reddit
Well, you may not be using things that have had problems / happened to not update when there was a problem / not have been using it long enough.
For example, I got bit by the samba-apparmor bug a few years back, which stopped samba shares from working until I manually fixed the apparmor profiles. That's the type of thing that can happen with Arch just due to them being on the bleeding edge with bugs from upstream. It is what it is.
Waiting a week would have also solved it. That's what I ended up liking about the rolling release model -- you see more bugs, but they are much more temporary. So even though I'm on Tumbleweed now I still like rolling.
OTOH I wouldn't sugar-coat the downsides.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Good point. I saw someone comment that Grub had a breaking change on Arch but I use systemd-boot so I didn't have an issue.
InterestingVladimir@reddit
Nice dodge! I can say it wasn't amusing to reboot pc after update and it didn't boot. Whoops!
That is exactly the reason why my work partition is Debian and my gaming partition is Arch
Vogete@reddit
I mean, you might break your system by updating. It happens to me every week or so that something breaks and suddenly I have no sound, or no displays or not Bluetooth. It's just something you live with due to the cutting edge software versions. It's not Arch's fault per se, but it is happening nonetheless.
rizalmart@reddit
Because upon the new package version release, there's no guarantee that it will not break the system. Manjaro has broken polkit. Slackware Current although it was rolling release as Arch but surprisingly very stable with few crashes
IAmAnAudity@reddit
Perhaps because the community itself throws tomatoes. Manjaro is a great, stable Arch distro, and you people do nothing but hate on it
bstamour@reddit
Because when I used it as my daily driver distro almost 15 years ago it very much was unstable. I did in fact have times when merely upgrading my packages resulted in a ruined system.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Arch Linux probably changed a lot since then. I think you should give it another shot.
bstamour@reddit
it probably has, but I've been a happy Slacker now for over a decade, and can't see myself switching.
VS2ute@reddit
I have been using a package for 15 years or so. It builds in many distos from Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Mandriva families, just about anything execept for Arch branch. It fails in Mandriva and EndeavourOS, but with completely different crashes.
stocky789@reddit
Just don't update it That's the beauty of it.
Second do that - Btrfs exists for a reason
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Yeah, I use Btrfs with Snapper with automatic snapshots every day and when installing packages.
stocky789@reddit
It's the way to go hey
I have a younger trainee that works for my company and read the same old story Didn't want to go arch because he read his system would break often
Turned it into a training exercise. Bought him a decent laptop He installed arch with btrfs and hyprland, got it all setup and just loves it
Fuck anything up, just revert back. If an update kills something, revert back
huupoke12@reddit
Because software always have bugs. While software from big providers is likely to have extensive testing, but software from single-developer and hobby projects likely not. Something working seamlessly for you might not be for other, because you might not use the features the other is using.
While I was using Arch, I have experienced these bugs (non-exhaustive list): - Black screen on boot because sometimes a new version of kernel is pushed, while the nvidia driver isn't. - The DDNS client (forgot name) crashes because the Arch package maintainer didn't include the IPv6 dependencies. - Okular (KDE Plasma PDF reader) sometimes use 100% CPU until exit. - Sometimes, it is the reverse. Tor wasn't updated for a long time, which is a security risk according to upstream developers.
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
i think you misunderstand what “unstable” means in this context. arch IS unstable in that it doesn’t provide a stable environment. packages are frequently changing major versions, and other things need to updated and rebuilt frequently in order to keep up. this is, definitionally, an unstable environment. “unstable”, in this context, does not mean “crashes frequently”
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
True, but my main point is that people recommend against using Arch-based distributions with the assumption that updates will break your system.
Kilobyte22@reddit
It more than likely will not break your system, but it might. Any given update might break your system, usually not through a bug but a breaking change. It happened to me some time ago when the dedicated Plymouth version of the encrypt initramfs was integrated into the regular one. An easy fix but a breaking change. Another example is PostgreSQL which regularly receives major updates which need manual intervention to perform. This is fine for many workflows, and I don't mind it, but is is very much not stable. The advantage you get is software that's up to date which is very useful for a system you use for day-to-day stuff
With a stable distribution you would never have such a change in a regular update. However stable distributions have some kind of release system, where when a new release of a distribution is - well - released, you can expect many breaking changes. This means you can just install updates without having to worry about breaking a production system which becomes very important if you have a lot of them (tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands). Major upgrades are another story obviously, but since a major release will receive security updates and often even Bugfixes for quite some time, you don't have to worry about this too often. Sometimes this is 10 years or more, especially with commercial support.
I love my arch on my laptop and desktop but I wouldn't want to run my database server on it.
Twirrim@reddit
They may. You might be relying on behaviour of specific packages, or support of particular configurations, and suddenly that's not the case.
I know that I can run update any package on Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, etc. and know to an extremely high degree of confidence that everything I rely on will still be working afterwards. The versions of the running software doesn't change, the ABI etc. all remains the same. At the same time, security patches from upstream are back-ported to the shipped versions so I don't have to worry about my machine being insecure.
These are the kinds of much stronger guarantees that Arch will never make, because that's not what the distribution is designed for. It's designed to be "bleeding edge" with packages tracking upstream releases. Which also brings in additional risk because new features haven't necessarily had a chance to bake in and bugs be resolved (which is very much application to application thing, with quality all over the place). Great, if that's what you want or need, and you're willing to accept the occasional inconvenience that comes from it.
That's what is meant by stable vs unstable, it's not about the reliability of individual pieces of software, it's about version stability.
In my case, I don't use Arch because I don't ever want to deal with that risk. I need my machines to be up, running, and reliable. I need to know that I can patch and get on with what I'm doing, because if my machines aren't functional, I'm not able to work etc.
night_fapper@reddit
it wont break your system, but it can breaks a lot of apps/packages for sure
ericek111@reddit
I'm using ZFS. I have enough stories of update-induced breakage to fill a book. Either it's some symbol being flagged as strictly GPL, or changes in kernel functions/structs... Linux doesn't have a stable API.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Thank you for the clarification night fapper.
rocketeer8015@reddit
They will, it’s just a question of when. Imagine you had used arch back when kde 4 was the most recent version, what do you think happened when they ripped that out and replaced it with plasma5 which in turn eventually got replaced with plasma6?
Or what do you think happened when gnome changed their entire usability approach? Just because a software carries the same name doesn’t mean there ain’t regressions or horrible changes in it.
Stable in this case means that if you install a software package from say Debian 12, you are guaranteed that there will be no breaking changes to your workflow in Debian 12. they guarantee that if you depend on a certain library, in a certain version with a certain ability being there, that it will be there. If a program runs today on Debian 12 it is guaranteed to run on Debian 12 10 years from now.
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
just because it’s never happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen at all. i love arch and it suits my needs, but i would never recommend it to someone who doesn’t have the savvy to fix things when they break
abotelho-cbn@reddit
They can "break" your system in the sense that configuration updates or behavior can change at any time. For that reason it's tough to use in an enterprise or consistent deployment. You have to constantly keep an eye out for changes. You can't rely on the system to behave the same after an update.
noAnimalsWereHarmed@reddit
Grub broke endeavour a while back, which is a perfect example of what can happen. I love using endeavour, but Debian is my choice for my work laptop.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Good point, someone else brought it up too. Luckily, I use systemd-boot.
Julian_1_2_3_4_5@reddit
another reason i use a timeshift hook and have downgrade installed, if something doesnt work, especially with wayland or nvidia drivers just revert to before the upgrade or downgrade the bad package
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
I have btrfs as my file system and use snapper for snapshots. It automatically creates a snapshot every day and every time after installing packages.
Julian_1_2_3_4_5@reddit
okay, i've had problems with nvidia drivers, i have to keep them on an older version right now, because theres a bug with them with wayland on kde and my gpu, but with downgrade from the AUR it wasn't much of a hassle.
arkane-linux@reddit
This is a very common misunderstanding, the meaning of unstable is indeed quite ambiguous.
There are two definitions of unstable.
Arch is unstable because it changes, it does not do point releases, software may be updated with breaking changes at any time.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Arch Linux has testing repositories for new releases of packages to be placed there before being accepted to the main repositories. Arch's stable repositories have fairly strict requirements, according to the Arch Wiki. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Official_repositories
xiongchiamiov@reddit
Think about it this way: if I am using my computer for work, and I run an update in the morning, is it possible that something will change that will require me to spend time dealing with it instead of doing my actual job?
_DontYouLaugh@reddit
breaking changes != broken changes
arkane-linux@reddit
The software will of course be stable when released. But because Arch ships the very latest (Or very recent) versions of software stuff may simply change. New software might have features added or removed, or certain features may have seen a complete overhaul.
A good recent example would be Wireplumber moving to another configuration format. This broke all existing Wireplumber configurations. I spend an hour trying to figure out how to keep it from putting my Bluetooth DAC to sleep on idle.
The software was stable, but functionality changed.
MarsDrums@reddit
This is true. While Arch users may be using a version 1.6 of something, the more "stable" distros will still be on 1.0 or 1.2 or whatever. That piece of software might even get to version 1.9.3 before the next stable distro is released with that version... IF it even gets that version. Those users might get version 1.7 maybe. It all depends on the stable release date and what that distro is offering with it's update.
marz016@reddit
arch is stable, simple as that. if your system breaks, it's on you. yes, it is rolling release, many people prefer distros point release for professional purposes I guess.. but that's it. by the way, you are not obligated to update your system everyday if you don't want to. update it once a year like debian if you want to lol =P
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
you are very confidently incorrect
marz016@reddit
Thank you. I read your answer. You don't even know the definition of unstable. Ask any arch developer and listen what they say. Arch is stable. There are a TESTING repo. Seek information about it. Arch is not bleeding edge. Arch is rolling release. Period. I've been using arch for years, every single time my system broke was my only fault. You can say I'm wrong, doesn't mean you are right either. That's your opinion at best.
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
just because there is a testing repo doesn’t mean it’s stable. the environment is unstable, the packages change major versions at any time (after testing). if you need a STABLE environment with repeatability, arch does not provide that. which is fine! it’s not trying trying to provide that, that’s why i use it for my desktop and laptops. but it is factually incorrect to say that its a stable environment. you are intentionally not using the accepted definition of stable here.
marz016@reddit
That's what I'm saying. This is how a rolling release works. You are looking for a point release. Ubuntu 2x.xx has a "stable" environment for development purposes. That's why people use it. You can say "tested on arch Linux 22.04".
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
right, thus arch is unstable lol
marz016@reddit
ok i got you lol
PermitTenders@reddit
pick one
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
What? I think you missed his point. Arch Linux has two categories of repositories; their main "stable" repos, and their "testing" repos. All new releases go to the testing repos before they make it into the stable repos. Arch Linux also has strict quality requirements before packages go into stable repos. This makes Arch Linux systems, despite being rolling-release, quite stable even though it's unstable in the sense that it changes frequently.
PermitTenders@reddit
You're right, my bad.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
All good.
marz016@reddit
Just read op's wall of text. No matter what people say. It is stable.
marz016@reddit
Yep. Arch Wiki:
Testing repositories The intended purpose of the testing repositories is to provide a staging area for packages to be placed prior to acceptance into the main repositories. Package maintainers (and general users) can then access these testing packages to make sure that there are no problems integrating the new package. Once a package has been tested and no errors are found, the package can then be moved to the primary repositories.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
If he's incorrect, it would be helpful to explain how so.
xXBongSlut420Xx@reddit
every single other comment here has done so, including my other ones. this person and op are conflating definitions of unstable and then being obtuse when people try to explain that.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
In my title, I used the term "unstable" incorrectly as Arch is by definition unstable. I can't edit post titles but that's besides the point. My point (described in the post text) is that Arch's rolling-release distribution model doesn't make it likely for your system to break from package updates. I say this because I see many people warn against using Arch-based distributions saying that package updates will break your system.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
To be fair,
pacmanoften gives me an error if I want to install a new package and I haven't updated my system withpacman -Syuin a while.gabriel_3@reddit
You are missing a core point of quality assurance.
Arch is updating frequently single packaged without any QA on the full distro.
When a new released package comes along, the system perfectly stable before could become instable.
This is the reason why Arch and Its derivatives are considered unstable.
creamcolouredDog@reddit
I had a Manjaro install break after an update, but mostly because I haven't booted it in 6 months. Turns out using a fast moving OS in a machine you barely switch on was a bad idea
darth_chewbacca@reddit
I've used Arch for 15 years now. Updating an arch system can break your system. I've only experienced one update that left my machine in a non bootable state, but I experience some sort of "this app is not working correctly anymore" once every three months. I experience a semi-significant big about once every 18 months.
Other than that one catastrophic issue, fixing the small breaks is pretty easy... Tweak a config file sort of fix. The semi significant issues require some sort of work around until a newer update fixes the issue.
For something like Debian, this doesn't happen. Once you've set up the machine and it's working, it stays working.... Until the time you need to update to the new version.
lemoce78@reddit
Because I could use for 3 months without breaking, one update and podman broke it, in my production machine. Moved to Gentoo and I have 3 years, with one hardware migration and no issues.
Gentoo Stable is the ultimate distro for me.
BuzzKiIIingtonne@reddit
Unstable and unreliable are not the same thing.
Arch Linux be definition is unstable because it doesn't free packages like how Debian Stable does.
This does not mean Arch Linux is unreliable, so long as you don't install packages with known issues.
nemoj_da_me_peglas@reddit
Others have explained how unstable can mean different things depending on the context so I won't go into that, but I will say that if we're going for reasons not to install Arch it would be because it's a lot more effort to set up and maintain than other distros. It's been a few years since I've used it so I dunno how much has changed in this regard, but you used to have to keep an eye on the site and look at the news items to keep up with whether there was a potentially breaking change that came through. Likewise, when you update packages with config files they aren't automatically merged like in other distros so you have to go check the pacnew file and do it yourself etc etc.
In any case, the 'breaking' changes while not common, still happen far more often than on a distro like Ubuntu. Just checking the Arch site now for example shows a news item telling people who update the ssh package need to manually restart the ssh service for it to accept new connections. This is the kind of thing that happens automatically elsewhere. This is a very minor thing, but enough minor headaches do add up to become unbearable.
alerikaisattera@reddit
They are. That's the point of them
faqatipi@reddit
Because they are
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'm convinced now.
faqatipi@reddit
I don't get the desire to pretend as if Arch isn't going to be comparably unstable compared to a fixed release distro
anyone876@reddit
My 6th month arch journey: Started with kde 5.27 which worked well for couple of weeks until the catastrophic kde 6 update which tanked my performance and was buggy as hell, I own nvidia gpu, I know, but still.
Migrated to gnome, found out that it’s the better de for me, so great. That lasted about two months. Now gdm refuses to work with my proprietary gpu drivers, rendering my pc unusable - perma black screen. The issue has not been resolved yet.
Went back to kde on a new install - it’s almost usable now, especially with the new explicit sync nvidia drivers, I was satisfied.
Until a week later - Firefox started crashing every 20 seconds making my pc practically unusable as I use my browser a lot and I don’t want to migrate from firefox. This issue lasted about two weeks - by this time I already hopped to Debian.
In the meantime pipewire was bugged during about 4 out of the 6 months I was on arch causing my bluetooth mic to be unusable.
I have been using Linux for almost a decade now and RHEL professionally for five years. My personal arch install was used only for browsing, light gaming and hobbyist coding. 0 packages from the aur and some flatpaks too for the proprietary apps. My system was incredibly lean and I set up manually.
I refuse to believe there is any testing done on arch. Instead people are being gaslit into blaming themselves for updating/or not updating, not following mailing lists, subreddits, forum posts and what not.
As a toy distro arch is cool, it’s also a somewhat decent linux learning tool. Not trying to hate on arch users, I am actually happy for them that they haven’t experienced the issues I have.
glotzerhotze@reddit
You can either run linux on your desktop or you can run your multi-billion dollar application on a linux server fleet.
Both have different requirements and stability is a major concern to one of the above scenarios.
Please try to picture your question going to different audiences and imagine the vastly different answers you might get because of that fact.
I‘m not running arch, btw.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
In my post, I specifically talk about desktop usage: I recommend Arch-based distributions for new Linux users coming from Windows.
teohhanhui@reddit
Yes, you'll break your Arch system if you just update packages without reading the arch-announce mailing list or Arch news. It's even specifically called out here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations#Package_management
ZetaZoid@reddit
If Arch, including all the apps you use, does not sometimes break on updates, then you are either in the honeymoon period of limited duration or you have a very simple/lucky setup or you are blind to breakages. For example... KDE6 was introduced recently with bugs and the updates had bugs, and if you use KDE, you would almost certain notice them. Each OS update puts at risk every AUR package that depends on the kernel headers (e.g., VirtualBox) since the AUR packages are not necessarily in sync with the official repositories. Heck, sometimes even staples, like Google Chrome break.
So, either you are a poor sample-of-one or you need to attend NA more often ;-)
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
I use KDE, and I didn't notice any issues. To be fair though, I started using KDE after KDE6 was released.
I actually dislike the AUR and recommend against using it, but that's a topic for another post.
EnnonGShamoi@reddit
I have had Arch completely trash itself twice simply by running pacman updates and rebooting, so yes, it's hilariously unstable. After the second time, I no longer use it.
For a rolling release distro I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. They're far better at it
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
What happened after rebooting in those two situations? BTW I'm not doubting you I'm just curious to know.
EnnonGShamoi@reddit
This was years ago (so to be fair, things could have improved since then), so I don't remember exactly, but one of the times I completely lost any graphical UI, just booted straight to console. Recoverable? Sure. Annoying that I have to fix my OS when I’m trying to do other shit? Absolutely.
The second time was something with btrfs where it actually was going to be a major PITA to recover, and I just threw in the towel after that one
Don't get me wrong, Arch has it uses if you need bleeding-edge stuff, their wiki is a great general reference, but trusting it as a production OS? Imma pass fam, I got better things to do
relsi1053@reddit
Because it breaks too much, but many of the arch users are used to it, and don't consider that a problem and even forget that other people can't do anything if they were in their place.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Do most Arch users experience system breakages from updating packages? I've never had any issues for years so I'm surprised to hear that.
PermitTenders@reddit
because it is?
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
I technically used the word "unstable" incorrectly (Arch is unstable). But my point is that Arch's rolling-release model doesn't mean it will randomly break unless you do something to break it.
PraetorRU@reddit
It doesn't mean an opposite either. Something may be broken not because some app started to crash, but because a new version has a new API, config parameters etc, and that result in some inportant scripts or other software to break or produce uninspected results.
Stable distro's are not just about software being more tested, it's also about freezing software versions to prevent any significant change in their behaviour.
SaltyMaybe7887@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the helpful comment, I didn't think about this before.
PermitTenders@reddit
if by “do something to it” you mean “upgrade a dependency” then okay sure the issue isn’t with the software which has presumably gone through some testing for OS compatibility, but arch and other rolling distributions provide zero guarantees that any given update will enjoy interoperability with any of its dependent packages.
if there are no guarantees that my dependencies are going to be compatible with critical software each time i upgrade then how can i consider those dependencies and their distribution mechanism to be anything other than completely unstable?
FryBoyter@reddit
Is Arch stable in the sense that after an update a program is just as usable as before or that no changes to the configuration files are necessary? No. Arch is definitely unstable in this case.
Is Arch quite problem-free to use? Based on my experience with Arch after more than 10 years, I would say yes. Whenever there were problems, the cause was always a layer 8 problem.
LonelyNixon@reddit
I've been using Linux for like 15 years now and I'm by no means a programmer or anything.
Rolling and even semi rolling like Fedora have the issue where an update will come and break things. If it hasn't happened to you yet or you had to go back and waste time troubleshooting it's because it hasn't happened to you yet, but to be clear there's so many different hardware configurations so many customizable uis and so many workflows and esoteric things out there that it will happen. Some things that get overlooked are even obvious like when a kernel update prevented my ryzen CPU from idling on my laptop. Literally cut 2 to 3 hours out of my battery life depending on usage.
That isn't to say that stable distros like Debian or Ubuntu are necessarily without bugs. However with lts and point releases oftentimes what you are left with after an install is what you get. You don't have to reconfigure everything and most updates are just bug fixes and security updates. In some cases it may not work for your hardware at all like if you need a fresh kernel and Misa for your new hardware but the version of Debian stable that is currently out predates the existence of this hardware. Sometimes you're stable distro might even have a bug that is fixed in a rolling distro. You have to either find alternative ways of installing that update or move on to the rolling distro or live with the bug depending on what it is but the bug isn't going to change.
Hence the stability. But again you are more likely to have something to break if you are running bleeding edge software.
pfp-disciple@reddit
Addressing the two (relevant) definitions of unstable, and why they both apply to cautions regarding Arch:
Why this warrants caution for new users: It will have the latest version of things, when most online info might be for an earlier version; this could make learning or troubleshooting difficult for a new user. A user trying to learn GIMP, for example, may find that menu options have moved or been renamed.
Why this warrants caution for new users: sometimes those changes aren't obvious, a seemingly minor detail can wreak havoc. Many new users aren't willing or able to invest the time needed to stay on top of this, and to learn all of the different pieces
FryBoyter@reddit
As usual, one should first note which meaning of stable one means.
https://bitdepth.thomasrutter.com/2010/04/02/stable-vs-stable-what-stable-means-in-software/
In my experience, Arch is both stable and unstable.
eyabethe@reddit
Stability refers to frequency of change, not the foundational problems. Foundational problems prone to happen more on unstable grounds. That's the point of stable - unstable talk.
Debian Stable rarely changes if it even does, Debian Unstable changes frequently.
Does Debian Unstable break a lot? Not my experience, but it still is unstable regardless of it breakage ratio.
skwyckl@reddit
It's just a different model that for many is more difficult to grasp because they have been mostly exposed to LTS-type of software. Also, I guess beginners tend to break Arch more easily than, say, Ubuntu because they don't really want Arch, they just want to say they use Arch, but they actually don't want to tinker and take care of their OS, which is nothing bad (lots of people just don't have the time, TBF), but they don't realize that they'd be better off with something else. Sadly there is a lot of turf wars and bad mouthing going on between Linux communities ("Mint is only for newbies", "Arch is for nerds without a life", "Ubuntu is for corporate cucks who want to look cool by saying they use Linux" and so on, I have read so much hate over the decades...), and newcomers believe some of it and pass on the belief to the next guy.