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I've been running Arch on multiple machines for 10 years at this point. Been through the systemd transition. In my experience there is very little breakage, and

by libcg 5y ago

I've been running Arch on multiple machines for 10 years at this point. Been through the systemd transition. In my experience there is very little breakage, and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more. I'm guessing Valve will not deploy Arch packages directly to the Deck, but instead do weekly/monthly releases that are properly QA'd. It should be very smooth while giving them flexibility to deploy the patches they didn't upstream yet.

encryptluks2 5y ago
Even if they did release packages directly, it is trivial to create automatic snapshots that should breakage occur, relevant system directories can be reverted.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  No, not if such breakage causes data loss and damage. Edit: Did everyone replying here forget we're talking about an embedded device, a game console, before responding? It behooves Valve to do QA above and beyond what Arch has done is what I'm saying. Valve wouldn't want to take the chance of just passing on upstream Arch directly. Devices may end up bricked, customers upset, etc. Testing is good actually. Furthermore, their hardware may not even be something Arch tests on, so it could literally brick the device if they just passed through updates.
  - likeclockwork 5y ago
    Highly improbable.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    You mean like those caused by Mac and Windows updates? No OS is perfect, so I'm sure like any device you use, making backups of data critical to you is still necessary. You know what else can cause data loss? Your hard drive breaking.
  - volta83 5y ago
    I use btrfs snapshot with arch just for this, and they've saved me multiple times. Its like Apple's Time Machine, but also covers system files.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      Gotta love Snapper and snap-pac!
sgtnoodle 5y ago
It's great, I've been running an Arch server in my garage for about 6 years. I've had maybe 4 updates break in a way that required manual intervention. I've spent maybe 30 minutes total dealing with OS specific update issues, over 6 years! My Arch based desktop tends to break more often because it has a lot more stuff installed. Since I use it daily, though, it's pretty quick to roll with the punches.
simion314 5y ago
>and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more. I ran Arch but moved back to a LTS , it is not about stability but mostly I don't want surprises, my file manager works fine for me now , who knows the next version would remove or break something that will be maybe fixed in a different version but would also introduce a new bug. For my IDE I keep 3 versions just in case some bug or stupid UI change is introduced, for people like my I think as stable base where you can update only the programs that you want/need is a better solution. I also have the option and used it to get backported kernels and nvidia drivers to get better vulkan support - I am at that point in live where I would dread to see that there is an update pending and there is a new kernel or video driver version available.
je42 5y ago
I have the opposite experience, I have had several breakages with Arch in a years time. (without Timeshift - i would have been totally lost how to fix the breakages). So right now, if i run a system upgrade (pacman -Syu) my system would not boot. - i had to exclude linux (nvidia,nvidia-utils) from my pacman system upgrade. - even then most stuff seems to work, except for steam... however, i don't see any log messages that indicate whats wrong. - so my current conclusion is not to upgrade for another week or so and then try again... Also, during the gnome 4 transition I had a similar issue that i had to wait "several" updates until the system upgrade wouldn't break my desktop.
- libcg 5y ago
  Sounds like these issues are caused by the nvidia driver, which I thankfully never had to deal with, and the Steam Deck won't use that either.

by libcg 5y ago

encryptluks2 5y ago

Even if they did release packages directly, it is trivial to create automatic snapshots that should breakage occur, relevant system directories can be reverted.

guerrilla 5y ago
No, not if such breakage causes data loss and damage. Edit: Did everyone replying here forget we're talking about an embedded device, a game console, before responding? It behooves Valve to do QA above and beyond what Arch has done is what I'm saying. Valve wouldn't want to take the chance of just passing on upstream Arch directly. Devices may end up bricked, customers upset, etc. Testing is good actually. Furthermore, their hardware may not even be something Arch tests on, so it could literally brick the device if they just passed through updates.
- likeclockwork 5y ago
  Highly improbable.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  You mean like those caused by Mac and Windows updates? No OS is perfect, so I'm sure like any device you use, making backups of data critical to you is still necessary. You know what else can cause data loss? Your hard drive breaking.
- volta83 5y ago
  I use btrfs snapshot with arch just for this, and they've saved me multiple times. Its like Apple's Time Machine, but also covers system files.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Gotta love Snapper and snap-pac!

sgtnoodle 5y ago

It's great, I've been running an Arch server in my garage for about 6 years. I've had maybe 4 updates break in a way that required manual intervention. I've spent maybe 30 minutes total dealing with OS specific update issues, over 6 years! My Arch based desktop tends to break more often because it has a lot more stuff installed. Since I use it daily, though, it's pretty quick to roll with the punches.

simion314 5y ago

>and it's easier to deal with than a huge upgrade every 6 months or more. I ran Arch but moved back to a LTS , it is not about stability but mostly I don't want surprises, my file manager works fine for me now , who knows the next version would remove or break something that will be maybe fixed in a different version but would also introduce a new bug. For my IDE I keep 3 versions just in case some bug or stupid UI change is introduced, for people like my I think as stable base where you can update only the programs that you want/need is a better solution. I also have the option and used it to get backported kernels and nvidia drivers to get better vulkan support - I am at that point in live where I would dread to see that there is an update pending and there is a new kernel or video driver version available.

je42 5y ago

I have the opposite experience, I have had several breakages with Arch in a years time. (without Timeshift - i would have been totally lost how to fix the breakages). So right now, if i run a system upgrade (pacman -Syu) my system would not boot. - i had to exclude linux (nvidia,nvidia-utils) from my pacman system upgrade. - even then most stuff seems to work, except for steam... however, i don't see any log messages that indicate whats wrong. - so my current conclusion is not to upgrade for another week or so and then try again... Also, during the gnome 4 transition I had a similar issue that i had to wait "several" updates until the system upgrade wouldn't break my desktop.

libcg 5y ago
Sounds like these issues are caused by the nvidia driver, which I thankfully never had to deal with, and the Steam Deck won't use that either.