DUR: The Debian User Repository • Hacker News Board

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#71

Post by spinax » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

hjek wrote: post #68

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

> This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, It goes beyond anecdotal evidence. I mean, if you look at the Arch news feed[0], there are a good few updates since then that are labelled "requires manual intervention". I like Arch and it's great they're posting those notices, but I don't think it can be claimed that upgrading an on-the-edge system is always problem free. [0] https://archlinux.org/news/

This is part of the agreement for using Arch, it's not a system you can ignore, you must actually pay attention to these news items. The upgrade tool I use actually shows new news to you front and center when performing an upgrade so you're blatantly aware that you have to follow instructions. Those are not "problems", they are "following instructions to keep up with changes." If you wand a distro to just ignore and hope it all goes well, Arch is not for you. Never was.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#72

Post by swiley » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

kijin wrote: post #23

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the whole, Debian administration is a lot more complicated than on Arch because of the relative complexity of the architecture. This should be expected though. Debian has been around a lot longer and is depended on by more of the Linux world. Complexity is a natural outcome of more stakeholder requirements (more stakeholders = more requirements = more complexity). I won't get into the systemd holy war, but suffi…

It's okay to ride a bicycle instead of a car, or vice versa. It's not okay to put bicycle tires on a car, or a car transmission on a bicycle. I have no complaints about distros that are either 100% systemd or 100% init scripts. The problem with Debian (and its derivatives) is that they're trying to maintain both at the same time. If they really want to support both "/etc/init.d/servicename start" and "systemctl start…

Gentoo seems to manage.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#73

Post by spinax » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

smarx007 wrote: post #69

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

I have the similar experience to the OP. The last time I had 700 packages or so updating, pressed Ctrl+C (apt or brew never left my system in a broken state after Ctrl+C) and the system no longer worked after reboot. Had to update all packages via a bootable Arch image on a USB to fix it. Also had KDE and Gnome behave weirdly after update to the point of having to reboot immediately – never happened on Ubuntu LTS. Ar…

> I had 700 packages or so updating

You absolutely ignored your Arch system for far too long and most likely missed important News notifications that manual actions were required, it happens now and again. With updating 700 packages at once you've just dug yourself a hole - Arch is not a system you can ignore for that long, by design it's always changing to reflect the newest upstream changes to software. As I posted to the other person, if you want a distro to ignore over time then Arch is not for you.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#74

Post by nextlevelwizard » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

spinax wrote: post #64

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is off-topic, but the reason why I stay away from Arch is that it has not once, but twice, just fucked itself from right under me. First time around I was just getting up and running and as I installed python3 there was some mismatch between some very core libraries and I couldn't roll back since the library in question wasn't available anywhere, but python3 package (or something that came along with it) was lin…

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

>Your anecdotal failures

First of all how are these MY failures and not failures of the Arch ecosystem? Running `pacman -Syu` on any given Friday should NOT leave you with a machine that no longer boots. Installing a very stable software such as fucking python3 shouldn't break litereally everything else that is linked to same lib. Everything is anecdotal, but trying to use that to dimiss literally OS breaking incidents feels silly.

If I type in `apt update && apt update -y` I can be sure that my computer will be usable after a reboot. I've once ran into an issue where the next kernel update didn't boot, so Ubuntu booted me back into the previous version and told me the issue. This is exactly the kind of thing I want my OS to protect me from. I am not a kernel developer and don't have sufficient knowledge or interest to get into that. I also don't want to be afraid to update my software.

I have nothing against Arch or its users, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who actually needs to use their computer and isn't willing to spend a day every now and then fixing their OS.

Just as a side note on this rant: My experience is by no means unique. The whole reason I even gave Arch a second try (after the python3 library ordeal) was that my colleagues are using Arch as their daily driver, but even with them every now and then I hear how they have to fiddle with their packages to make things work/compile or that they updated something and something broke (often it is audio).

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#75

Post by akagusu » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

I use Debian for desktop and server since Woody, but recently I switched to Void for desktop because it is easier to build custom packages.

It is 2021 and it still is a PITA to build custom Debian packages.

Debian is a rock solid distro and I think people would use it more if package management was better.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#76

Post by spinax » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #74

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

>Your anecdotal failures First of all how are these MY failures and not failures of the Arch ecosystem? Running `pacman -Syu` on any given Friday should NOT leave you with a machine that no longer boots. Installing a very stable software such as fucking python3 shouldn't break litereally everything else that is linked to same lib. Everything is anecdotal, but trying to use that to dimiss literally OS breaking inciden…

> If I type in `apt update && apt update -y` I can be sure that my computer will be usable after a reboot

As from my other replies, that's awesome - you're looking for a usage paradigm that is not what Arch is for; it requires attention and regular maintenance, and "keeping up" on a regular basis. You've hit the nail on the head with the followup sentence, you have to be willing to spend a day every now and then keeping up.

Arch is not for people who want to ignore their system and hope it all just keeps working, then update 700 packages all at once and have it come crashing down. There is an agreement (the social kind, not the legal kind) you enter into when using Arch that you actually engage with it on a regular basis because you like doing that and like to tinker. It's build for experienced Linux techs who like to engage on a regular basis with the plumbing.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#77

Post by christophilus » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

spinax wrote: post #66

christophilus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve only just started running Arch. One thing I don’t understand is the AUR security model. Aren’t you running arbitrary code / binaries built by some stranger on the interwebs on your machine? This is my biggest hesitation, and why I haven’t used AUR.

Using the 80/20 rule, most AUR packages are simply the build script ("PKGBUILD") instructions and perhaps a patch if required, etc. (or say adding a missing .desktop file). The process involves your AUR tool (I use "pikaur") downloading them, then executing the build instructions _locally_ on your device. So your desktop is actually the one downloading the real source code and compiling it, then installing it. The 20…

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I’ll have to do a deep dive this weekend.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#78

Post by seba_dos1 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #74

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

>Your anecdotal failures First of all how are these MY failures and not failures of the Arch ecosystem? Running `pacman -Syu` on any given Friday should NOT leave you with a machine that no longer boots. Installing a very stable software such as fucking python3 shouldn't break litereally everything else that is linked to same lib. Everything is anecdotal, but trying to use that to dimiss literally OS breaking inciden…

> Running `pacman -Syu` on any given Friday should NOT leave you with a machine that no longer boots

Says who? That's pretty much not what Arch tries to guarantee at all. You're at the very least supposed to read the announcements and you should upgrade often, as otherwise the end result is undefined. Some distros like Debian support partial updates, Arch very explicitly does not.

If you use Arch the way it's intended to be used, you're not going to have to spend a day every now and then to fix your OS, but if you don't, you will. I use it as my work system for years and every time I broke it was my own fault.

And if you don't want to use it the way it's intended, then just use another OS that better matches your expectations. I don't use Arch on my server after all.

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#79

Post by seba_dos1 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

smarx007 wrote: post #69

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

I have the similar experience to the OP. The last time I had 700 packages or so updating, pressed Ctrl+C (apt or brew never left my system in a broken state after Ctrl+C) and the system no longer worked after reboot. Had to update all packages via a bootable Arch image on a USB to fix it. Also had KDE and Gnome behave weirdly after update to the point of having to reboot immediately – never happened on Ubuntu LTS. Ar…

So, in other words, you have intentionally tried to break your system and you succeeded. So, congratulations?

pacman and apt have a different feature-set. Handling a neglected system and recovering from terminated upgrade are explicitly not what pacman does. If you expect such features from your system, why did you install Arch in the first place?

Re: DUR: The Debian User Repository

#80

Post by seba_dos1 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

hjek wrote: post #68

spinax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is fine hobbyist distro and you for sure have to live on he edge, but I wouldn't use it for anything you expect to be able to use every day at a moments notice. I disagree 100%. This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, it's my main personal machine with all the random things your typical desktop does and it works great. I similarly used a work laptop almost as long until I was forced off Arch…

> This laptop I'm typing from now was installed 2014-07-06, It goes beyond anecdotal evidence. I mean, if you look at the Arch news feed[0], there are a good few updates since then that are labelled "requires manual intervention". I like Arch and it's great they're posting those notices, but I don't think it can be claimed that upgrading an on-the-edge system is always problem free. [0] https://archlinux.org/news/

> there are a good few updates since then that are labelled "requires manual intervention"

That's by design. If you choose Arch as your system, you're agreeing to that (otherwise why would you choose it in the first place - that's a direct consequence of its value proposition). I'm not sure I would call that a "problem".