Out of all the distributions I've tested, pure arch has been the most stable, most documented, most fixable distro yet I've dealt with yet
Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
181–190 of 422 posts
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#182I always reinstall from scratch although I could just Debian "dist upgrade". My thinking is this: if, ten years ago, I somehow missed a security patch or some 0-day owned my machine before it was patched, then I'd potentially have been copying / dd'ing / rsync'ing a rootkit for ten years. By installing from scratch at every new stable (or unstable) release, I get rid of a lot of potential security issues. Now as an a…
I reinstall once a year. Nowadays, with PXE booting, preseed files, and automation like Ansible, everything is pretty much automated for me.
This goes for both my personal and work laptops. Both have been running some version of Debian for the last ten years. For the previous four/five years, I've been on Debian Sid, and I may run into an issue about every other year that requires me to use timeshift to go back to yesterday's OS backup.
With the proper backup and automation strategies in place, I do not see a point in not doing a reinstall periodically. It definitely gives me peace of mind knowing I can be back online and 98% percent functional in under an hour in most cases on just about every device in the house.
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, Manjaro has been a fantastic base on top of Arch to start with- installer, desktop configured for the flavor you pick, and things Just Work out of the box, including the usual suspects like wifi, media keys (speakers, backlight, etc). My only real complaint was that I wanted to do a fairly extensive change to the sway configs, and tracking down where they put all the config files took a bit of time.
But with Manjaro you don't have to personally babysit every computer in the house. Imagine not having your wife and/or child mad after the occasional update breaks things and they're helpless because they simply refuse to get intimate with the OS their own computer! What kind of world would that be?
Well, the wife has a chromebook, and the kid is moved out on her own and pretty much only uses a phone anyway, so it's a pretty nice world, to be honest :)
At some point I'm tempted to get a fat server going so I can do my dev work remotely to it using a super light weight / long battery life laptop, but that's a complication too far at the moment.
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently got a macbook for work and I can't believe how many minor things just can't be changed. I don't think you can change the date format in the top right. It seems like you can't get rid of that damn dock entirely without killing important processes and breaking things. (I'm able to hide it and put it in the left, so it's mostly out of the way, but it seems so anti-user to force this interface on everyone). I…
What i've discovered is you really need to buy and/or install a bunch of 3rd party applications to get that horrible UI to work in any usable fashion.
I've seen a lot of people recommend this approach when searching for solutions online. I was trying to embrace the apple way, rather than forcing it to match what I'm used to. Your comment might be the push I need to just give up and force it to match what I'm used to.
But if this is the case, why do so many developers buy and enjoy macbooks? It seems ridiculous that you have to pay such a premium for a nice laptop, and then find random 3rd party applications to make it work the way you want.
If I wanted to endlessly tinker then I'd be happy with Linux. I was under the impression that macbooks would "just work". I've also been disappointed by poor UX in some cases, like randomly showing "enter your password" dialogs.
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#185[dead]
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#186That's great! But what it doesn't say is what's actually relevant: how much time you spent maintaining it in that period.
Stuff being obviously/"disruptively" broken usually has an undue amount of weight given to it, even though it generally (a) occurs at a time the administrator has chosen and should be planned to minimize the effects of any disruption (i.e. when you're doing updates or potentially problematic config changes), and (b) usually takes significantly less time to deal with, overall, than regular maintenance (upgrades, config changes caused by them, etc).
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The current glibc version broke Easy AntiCheat support for Proton games, but that's the only break of note in recent memory, and it only affects people playing multiplayer games on Linux, which is a minority (multiplayer gamers) of a minority (Linux gamers) of a minority (Linux users).
glibc updates have recently broken lots of Electron software (and probably other stuff using similar sandboxing), by using a new syscall (clone3? or something) to implement some library methods.
Pretty much every glibc update breaks something, honestly.
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#188I 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…
Installers often get configured for the average user, and the average user doesn't exist. Also remember to do a full system backup before you upgrade!
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#189I always reinstall from scratch although I could just Debian "dist upgrade". My thinking is this: if, ten years ago, I somehow missed a security patch or some 0-day owned my machine before it was patched, then I'd potentially have been copying / dd'ing / rsync'ing a rootkit for ten years. By installing from scratch at every new stable (or unstable) release, I get rid of a lot of potential security issues. Now as an a…
If you have a rootkit that you're concerned about copying around, that can somehow persist through pretty much everything on the system being upgraded at some point or another... you should probably also be worried about the various vectors that the rootkit could use to persist across OS reloads.
Re: Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently got a macbook for work and I can't believe how many minor things just can't be changed. I don't think you can change the date format in the top right. It seems like you can't get rid of that damn dock entirely without killing important processes and breaking things. (I'm able to hide it and put it in the left, so it's mostly out of the way, but it seems so anti-user to force this interface on everyone). I…
For the Command Tab issue, I created rcmd to fix it: https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd It became really annoying to press tab 5 times just to get to the app I need. If you’re interested in technical writings, I recently wrote about my journey to creating rcmd here: https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/window-switcher-app-store/ The dock stops being a problem once you set it to automatically hide and find ways to use the mouse le…
Thanks, this looks great. I'll definitely read this later.
But why doesn't the base macbook install support more of these features? I was led to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that I wouldn't have to tinker with a mac as much as I have with Linux. (I suppose that fine tuning keyboard shortcuts is very different from trying to desperately fix a video or wireless driver)
I assumed that apple optimized for a good user experience. Are "power users" (or even people that just want alt tab) not included in apple's UX goals?