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Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

meribold.org

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Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#81
post #7

I'm the same but with Gentoo, which is another rolling distribution. I've had it installed for over 12 years on multiple servers without any issues.

Same here. My gentoo installation on my previous machine was setup as I bought the PC, somewhere around 2008. I tried arch but it does not feel like home.

[deleted]

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#82
post #74

I am currently running Fedora 35. I haven't reinstalled since at least Fedora 21 (maybe older, I can't quite remember)! Every 6 months, I do the standard fedora upgrade and keep on going! This reminds me, it is time to update to Fedora 36!

I use Fedora as a VM for development on other systems. I just love the stable and smooth experience.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#83

I recently switched to an arch flavor because the AUR had a lot of little small utilities that make life better on wayland. Also, it's quite easy to install the latest version of golang and rust, etc. Pros: Documentation is excellent. Better than even Gentoo or Ubuntu's docs. Cons: Arch doesn't have an installer, and seems almost militantly against providing one, or a lot of other little utilities that could improve…

I think you misunderstood the point of the distribution. There's no installer because Arch developers have no need of one. They're creating the distribution for themselves, and if you find it useful (I do), that's great. There's no expectation that an "average technically literate joe" is going to use it because he's not in its target group.

You just proved parent's point.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#84

I recently switched to an arch flavor because the AUR had a lot of little small utilities that make life better on wayland. Also, it's quite easy to install the latest version of golang and rust, etc. Pros: Documentation is excellent. Better than even Gentoo or Ubuntu's docs. Cons: Arch doesn't have an installer, and seems almost militantly against providing one, or a lot of other little utilities that could improve…

Arch has installer since April 2021 https://archlinux.org/news/installation-medium-with-installe...

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#85
post #37

I recently switched to an arch flavor because the AUR had a lot of little small utilities that make life better on wayland. Also, it's quite easy to install the latest version of golang and rust, etc. Pros: Documentation is excellent. Better than even Gentoo or Ubuntu's docs. Cons: Arch doesn't have an installer, and seems almost militantly against providing one, or a lot of other little utilities that could improve…

There actually is an optional installer included with the official installation media now [1]. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/archinstall

Quite a good video about it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWWLN3wGNE

Used it to create a dual boot on my main machine and works a charm.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#86
post #62

My last clean Windows installation was in 2007 with Vista, and since then, I ran in-place upgrades to get to the next immediate version. It survived multiple mainboard changes and moved from MBR IDE HDDs to GPT SATA SSDs. (With the help of Acronis/Macrium images) The next big move would be to change to a Mainboard+CPU with Windows 11 support and an NVMe disk. I wonder how feasible this will be.

In my experience fresh no-bloat windows installs boot in seconds, which gets slower and slower every major soft or hardware upgrade.

Is your boot still fast?

Nice username btw.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#87

I recently switched to an arch flavor because the AUR had a lot of little small utilities that make life better on wayland. Also, it's quite easy to install the latest version of golang and rust, etc. Pros: Documentation is excellent. Better than even Gentoo or Ubuntu's docs. Cons: Arch doesn't have an installer, and seems almost militantly against providing one, or a lot of other little utilities that could improve…

> Updates seem to break for odd reasons. I had to uninstall nodejs to be able to do a system update. Why? There should be some sort of automated way to address this.

That usually happens when a package depends on a specific version of a dependency, with e newer (major) version in the repo.

It should only be an issue if you're using AUR packages or other package management systems. Official packages are updated for new dependencies afaik.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#88
I'm a happy user of another rolling release distribution: Debian testing. It's on my desktop and a laptop for a decade (even more for the desktop since I transferred the OS from my previous desktop pc).

I can't remember any problem during the upgrades of the recent years. I often apply partial updates through `aptitude` on a weekly basis, and full upgrades once in a while (maybe monthly). There were some rough times long ago, but I think it was related to the transition from initrc to systemd: for a major change like this, it's would be surprising if a testing release was perfect.

I don't think I ever had problems as acute as having no Xorg or alsa. If several occurrences of this kind had occurred, I would call my OS unstable.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#89

I can provide some details regarding the times things did break that I mentioned in the article. * In September 2014, X broke, and I created an `/etc/X11/Xwrapper.config` file with the lines `allowed_users = anybody` and `needs_root_rights = yes` to get it to work again. I don't remember and don't have notes on why that helped. It sure does sound like a pretty terrible hack. I don't have that Xwrapper.config file any…

You didn't get bitten by a painful glibc upgrade? It's been long enough that I don't recall details, but I thought that was a big one.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#90
>my experience doesn’t match the common notion that Arch Linux is unstable

Arch is unstable, as in, package versions constantly change and can (will) introduce bugs and regressions. Debian is considered stable because apart from security updates package versions are set in stone til the next release, so there won't be any surprises.

This is stable/unstable difference, that doesn't mean that you can't break your OS and have to reinstall in either Debian or Arch.

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