Live data from Hacker News

Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

meribold.org

91–100 of 422 posts

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#91
So what, I likely had my Arch Linux for a decade as well. Just copying it to the new SSD every time I had a new device.

I even have 2 bootloader entries: for intel and for amd devices so I do not need to reconfigure anything. ARM devices such as PineBook or Olimex are a PITA, though. Never had patience with them.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#93
post #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 an…

> 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.

which is not what the rest of the world means by "stable" when talking about software, so there is in practice a lot of surprise for users coming to Debian when they hear "stable" thinking that it means "no bugs" when it actually means "no changes"

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#94

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…

I am glad I am not the only one. I run have been running arch on a "experiment" VPS for ~11 years now. Been `pacman -Syu` ing every month :)

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#95

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 would like to defend arch here. In my experience, Arch's main focus is on upholding a simple consistent architecture. There are tools that do something like the bare minimum required work, and then excellent documentation so that the end user can correctly perform the remaining required work manually (or via their own scripts). As a result, there are certain features that will probably never be implemented. For exa…

>Arch's main focus is on upholding a simple consistent architecture

I though it is all about doing it the upstream way.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to defend arch here. In my experience, Arch's main focus is on upholding a simple consistent architecture. There are tools that do something like the bare minimum required work, and then excellent documentation so that the end user can correctly perform the remaining required work manually (or via their own scripts). As a result, there are certain features that will probably never be implemented. For exa…

> Another example is installers. Writing a basic installer for a single machine is easy. Writing an installer that covers any machine is very hard. Writing an installer that covers any machine with any configuration the user might want is impossible. This is a cop out. An installer doesn't need to cover every option a user might want. An installer only covering popular options/configurations is only a problem if the…

I'd call it more likely a form a neurosis than a cop-out.

It can be hard to resist some analysis paralysis when faced with an incredibly broad problem. There's a strong urge to find one solution to cover all cases. Trying to do everything at once being so overwhelming that it's impossible to get even started on it.

Of course, you're correct that the best thing to carve out the most common cases and then iterate. I've found that it takes time and experience to gain the wisdom to learn the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#97

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.

Likewise, I think my oldest install is a Void Linux system (another rolling release). Unfortunately, I have no clue how old it is; musl doesn't keep login records (wtmp?), and this install has lived through not merely multiple machines (moving hard drives from one box to another) but multiple filesystems (rsynced from I think ext4 to f2fs to zfs) and I think one of those jumps lost timestamps because the oldest time I can get is younger than I think the system is. Regardless, there's something special about that degree of continuity - at work, I like cattle, but at home I actually enjoy having a pet around.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#98

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.

The glibc upgrade which was painful (and essentially required recompiling everything) was much further back than 10 years. I think I was running LFS at the time, but recall it was painful for all distros. I don't think there was a glibc upgrade that was disruptive since then. There was the introduction of multi arch on Debian some years back which caused a bit of disruption (I was running Debian unstable at the time IIRC), but pretty much everything else has been very minor since then. I've been running arch for 2 years or so now, before I was running tumbleweed. I have to say that rolling releases have been much less eventful in general than release based distros (I administer my partners Ubuntu laptop and lts upgrades are a bit more disruptive).

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#99

As another Arch Linux user, I can attest that it is the rock-solid foundation for your computer. I use double boot to host both Linux and Windows; when I need to use Windows, I just put Linux into hibernation. This greatly extends the amount of time it can go without being rebooted. Driver and X problems still cropped up occasionally, but things seem much more reliable now than they did a while back. This is a also t…

When I don't need Windows for gaming, I just boot the physical windows partition from Linux using Virtualbox. This way I don't even have to hibernate and interrupt any work.

Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade

#100
post #99

As another Arch Linux user, I can attest that it is the rock-solid foundation for your computer. I use double boot to host both Linux and Windows; when I need to use Windows, I just put Linux into hibernation. This greatly extends the amount of time it can go without being rebooted. Driver and X problems still cropped up occasionally, but things seem much more reliable now than they did a while back. This is a also t…

When I don't need Windows for gaming, I just boot the physical windows partition from Linux using Virtualbox. This way I don't even have to hibernate and interrupt any work.

Yes, I do it too, but getting it to work is a bit tricky with UEFI.
Post reply on HN