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Interested in hearing about a Linux update that made the system unusable.

therealx 6y ago
Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.
- virtualwhys 6y ago
  Have been on Fedora for 10 years; the only thing that "reliably" breaks is the proprietary Nvidia driver. Otherwise Linux is pretty damn rock solid. These days "it just works" applies to Linux more than any other OS. And with the new Nvidia-less Dell Precision 5400 the system runs cool and quiet to boot. Linux isn't what it used to be...
- ravenstine 6y ago
  Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years ago, so maybe that's changed)
  - teddyh 6y ago
    It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file anymore; it’s all autodetected now.
tsechin 6y ago
I recently had to work around https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 by installing and selecting a specific (older) kernel. On affected versions, my wifi wouldn't come up. Granted it wasn't strictly "bricked", but I think no-wifi meets some of the bars for unusable. So yes, bad updates do happen.
dodobirdlord 6y ago
Last time I tried to update a Linux install I was trying to go from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, LTS to LTS. It crashed during the update and corrupted the initial install, throwing me back to grub to try to undo the damage.
danieldk 6y ago
The Linux 5.4 (LTS!) and 5.5 releases had consistent hangs on many Intel GPUs that use the i915 driver. I had to revert back to 4.19.x on my Linux machine. https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_Frequent_Intel_GPU_Hangs_In_Recent_Kernels https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_F... They should be fixed by now, but basically the latest LTS kernel was broken for 3-4 months on many Intel GPUs.
qplex 6y ago
Me too. People fail to grasp the difference between rendering the whole system unusable and just the OS. On a PC pretty much the only thing that can brick the machine is a BIOS update.

Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.

virtualwhys 6y ago
Have been on Fedora for 10 years; the only thing that "reliably" breaks is the proprietary Nvidia driver. Otherwise Linux is pretty damn rock solid. These days "it just works" applies to Linux more than any other OS. And with the new Nvidia-less Dell Precision 5400 the system runs cool and quiet to boot. Linux isn't what it used to be...
ravenstine 6y ago
Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years ago, so maybe that's changed)
- teddyh 6y ago
  It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file anymore; it’s all autodetected now.

tsechin 6y ago

I recently had to work around https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 by installing and selecting a specific (older) kernel. On affected versions, my wifi wouldn't come up. Granted it wasn't strictly "bricked", but I think no-wifi meets some of the bars for unusable. So yes, bad updates do happen.

dodobirdlord 6y ago

Last time I tried to update a Linux install I was trying to go from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, LTS to LTS. It crashed during the update and corrupted the initial install, throwing me back to grub to try to undo the damage.

danieldk 6y ago

The Linux 5.4 (LTS!) and 5.5 releases had consistent hangs on many Intel GPUs that use the i915 driver. I had to revert back to 4.19.x on my Linux machine. https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_Frequent_Intel_GPU_Hangs_In_Recent_Kernels https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_F... They should be fixed by now, but basically the latest LTS kernel was broken for 3-4 months on many Intel GPUs.

qplex 6y ago

Me too. People fail to grasp the difference between rendering the whole system unusable and just the OS. On a PC pretty much the only thing that can brick the machine is a BIOS update.