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This isn't Arch Linux we're talking about, it's the presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the worl

by hnarn 5y ago

This isn't Arch Linux we're talking about, it's the presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. I'm not saying you shouldn't back up your stuff but your expectation on user behavior is unrealistic to put it mildly.

dual_dingo 5y ago
I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release, which is an absolute disagrace given the fact that Apple can actually test their stuff on every single hardware model it is supposed to run. And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  Imagine the hardware that arch has to support vs the hardware configurations that arch has to support. Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.
- jamil7 5y ago
  > I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Use Manjaro then. It's a polished and reasonably tested Arch (roughly saying kind of like what Ubuntu is to Debian). Never had a single problem with it.
    - pharmakom 5y ago
      Ubuntu… polished? Ha!
      - qwerty456127 5y ago
        There always is a huge room for subjectivity, edge cases and other critique in this. But generally saying I'd say yes. My experience mostly is about desktop/laptop (non-gaming, on-board video only) though.
        heurisko 5y ago
        Same. The Ubuntu long term support releases are quite conservative. I did find the Unity interface more polished however. It seemed like Canonical did a lot of UX research, to make things like the "power off" button adjoin the corner of the screen, so you could imprecisely flick the cursor and know it has hit the target. It also worked a lot better under old hardware. I still use Unity with community support. It's a shame, I think as I remembered seeing the Unity interface at work sometimes and thinking that Ubuntu was making inroads.
- circularfoyers 5y ago
  I think the notable difference is that macOS has a standard release cycle of about a year, whereas Arch has a rolling release cycle. This why there's more possibility for breakage, as many of the core libraries or other software are likely having their versions bumped. This is based on my knowledge of how most standard release distros function and which I assume is Apple's update policy for software they ship. Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.
- simion314 5y ago
  >I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".
  - TimeBearingDown 5y ago
    Both things are true. Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.
- II2II 5y ago
  I would only call it a disgrace if the issue did not appear in testing yet appeared for a large number of users or if Apple released and update where problems appeared during testing. Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault. As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).
forgingahead 5y ago
My expectation for user behaviour is that users, regardless of self-identified tech competency, shouldn't upgrade their OS on the first day of a new release. I find that there's nothing that one can miss out on with a new release.
- seniorivn 5y ago
  what's the point of a release date if it's not ready? os upgrades do fail, and you better backup before you upgrade, but if it's released, than it means it's ready
  - beagle3 5y ago
    From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs — which aren’t uncommon. They have, especially with Apple, fewer configurations to test. But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely. The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.
    - hnarn 5y ago
      > From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs I don't think you'll find many "normal" people (i.e. non-developers) that agree with you on that definition.
      - beagle3 5y ago
        Indeed. And those people used to come to me for help when they upgraded their windows prematurely.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Conversely, I’ve been looking at release notes and — with the exception of security patches and needing the latest version of Xcode for my job — I’ve not actually seen any positive benefit to upgrading since the versions were named after cats rather than places. On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0 On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…
richeyryan 5y ago
You don't update OSX before March in my experience. There are always teething issues.
nuker 5y ago
> … presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. New tabs in Safari 15 are premium too. Look nice but totally unusable.
- planb 5y ago
  Those are opt-in in the final (12.0.1) release and the sane tabs are back..
jbirer 5y ago
bleeding-edge Arch Linux is more reliable than new macOS releases, lesson.
- hnarn 5y ago
  That's beside the point. Arch Linux makes no effort to appear more reliable than new macOS releases, and there's no reasonable expectation that it should be, even if it is.
endymi0n 5y ago
Personally, I really didn't regret waiting for 11.1 back then... unfortunately this wasn't the first bugged major release. While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.
egypturnash 5y ago
I've been using Macs since about 2000 and that was my reaction too; I remember being very glad I waited a bit after one release that deleted some user's entire iTunes libraries.
jonaustin 5y ago
Honestly, this is some FUD; I've used Arch for 10 years; upgrading at least once a week, and the only time an upgrade has really messed things up was when they switched to systemd. Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.
dsego 5y ago
At least on linux you can have /home as a separate partition, which should reduce the risk of losing user data. Unless I'm completely wrong and this doesn't really matter that much during updates.
joshspankit 5y ago
You’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this. Rightly so, I’d say. As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains. It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune. Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.

by hnarn 5y ago

dual_dingo 5y ago

I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release, which is an absolute disagrace given the fact that Apple can actually test their stuff on every single hardware model it is supposed to run. And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)

ungamedplayer 5y ago
Imagine the hardware that arch has to support vs the hardware configurations that arch has to support. Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.
jamil7 5y ago
> I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Use Manjaro then. It's a polished and reasonably tested Arch (roughly saying kind of like what Ubuntu is to Debian). Never had a single problem with it.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    Ubuntu… polished? Ha!
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      There always is a huge room for subjectivity, edge cases and other critique in this. But generally saying I'd say yes. My experience mostly is about desktop/laptop (non-gaming, on-board video only) though.
      - heurisko 5y ago
        Same. The Ubuntu long term support releases are quite conservative. I did find the Unity interface more polished however. It seemed like Canonical did a lot of UX research, to make things like the "power off" button adjoin the corner of the screen, so you could imprecisely flick the cursor and know it has hit the target. It also worked a lot better under old hardware. I still use Unity with community support. It's a shame, I think as I remembered seeing the Unity interface at work sometimes and thinking that Ubuntu was making inroads.
circularfoyers 5y ago
I think the notable difference is that macOS has a standard release cycle of about a year, whereas Arch has a rolling release cycle. This why there's more possibility for breakage, as many of the core libraries or other software are likely having their versions bumped. This is based on my knowledge of how most standard release distros function and which I assume is Apple's update policy for software they ship. Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.
simion314 5y ago
>I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".
- TimeBearingDown 5y ago
  Both things are true. Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.
II2II 5y ago
I would only call it a disgrace if the issue did not appear in testing yet appeared for a large number of users or if Apple released and update where problems appeared during testing. Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault. As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).

forgingahead 5y ago

My expectation for user behaviour is that users, regardless of self-identified tech competency, shouldn't upgrade their OS on the first day of a new release. I find that there's nothing that one can miss out on with a new release.

seniorivn 5y ago
what's the point of a release date if it's not ready? os upgrades do fail, and you better backup before you upgrade, but if it's released, than it means it's ready
- beagle3 5y ago
  From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs — which aren’t uncommon. They have, especially with Apple, fewer configurations to test. But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely. The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.
  - hnarn 5y ago
    > From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs I don't think you'll find many "normal" people (i.e. non-developers) that agree with you on that definition.
    - beagle3 5y ago
      Indeed. And those people used to come to me for help when they upgraded their windows prematurely.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Conversely, I’ve been looking at release notes and — with the exception of security patches and needing the latest version of Xcode for my job — I’ve not actually seen any positive benefit to upgrading since the versions were named after cats rather than places. On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0 On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…

richeyryan 5y ago

You don't update OSX before March in my experience. There are always teething issues.

nuker 5y ago

> … presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. New tabs in Safari 15 are premium too. Look nice but totally unusable.

planb 5y ago
Those are opt-in in the final (12.0.1) release and the sane tabs are back..

jbirer 5y ago

bleeding-edge Arch Linux is more reliable than new macOS releases, lesson.

hnarn 5y ago
That's beside the point. Arch Linux makes no effort to appear more reliable than new macOS releases, and there's no reasonable expectation that it should be, even if it is.

endymi0n 5y ago

Personally, I really didn't regret waiting for 11.1 back then... unfortunately this wasn't the first bugged major release. While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.

egypturnash 5y ago

I've been using Macs since about 2000 and that was my reaction too; I remember being very glad I waited a bit after one release that deleted some user's entire iTunes libraries.

jonaustin 5y ago

Honestly, this is some FUD; I've used Arch for 10 years; upgrading at least once a week, and the only time an upgrade has really messed things up was when they switched to systemd. Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.

dsego 5y ago

At least on linux you can have /home as a separate partition, which should reduce the risk of losing user data. Unless I'm completely wrong and this doesn't really matter that much during updates.

joshspankit 5y ago

You’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this. Rightly so, I’d say. As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains. It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune. Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.