4 ms·

To be fair, Linux has always been like this, breaking things with updates. Linux was ahead of commercial companies, but they caught up with it.

sph 10mo ago
Use better distros. I haven’t had a broken workstation since 2014 or so.
- jack_tripper 10mo ago
  Which is that Linux desktop distro that never has issues?
  - matsz 10mo ago
    I've been running Arch (on my desktop and servers) for over a decade, and never had issues. Just read their homepage before upgrading.
  - sph 10mo ago
    The past 5 years I’ve used the atomic Fedora Silverblue, and I wouldn’t go back to anything else. Last month I have experienced the first major kernel bug in two decades, and all I had to do was reboot into the previous system update. Pretty painless.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
  - smartmic 10mo ago
    Debian Stable.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    A recent HN submission has 300 comments, many talking about the stability about various distributions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095585 I'm personally partial to Arch Linux, haven't had an issue with upgrades since I moved to it in ~2017, which was the last year I let Ubuntu's dist-upgrade break my work computer.
  - pelagicAustral 10mo ago
    Nothing beats the stale, pragmatic platitude of Slackware.
    - mrweasel 10mo ago
      I miss running Slackware, if for no other reason that the weird look you get. For a decade I was running Slackware and a weird "package manager"(1). It was an incredible cool learning environment, but people though it was pretty strange. 1) https://web.archive.org/web/20040730204123/http://pack.sunsite.dk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040730204123/http://pack.sunsi...
      - pelagicAustral 10mo ago
        I had a colleague once that was an absolute anthropomorphic distro. This man was Linux personified, and he literally walked around town with a Slackware live CD at all times. This man refused to use any other operating system, or any other programming language outside D or Erlang. He was pretty fun.
      - prmoustache 10mo ago
        You can still use it. In fact it has never been easier because flatpak (available as a slackbuild) allows you to easily install apps you would have had to compile yourself many years ago.
  - dspillett 10mo ago
    I've been using Debian:Stable on servers and occasionally on desktop for many years. I can't say I've ever had a problem due to a bad update. IIRC there have been a couple, but they've not affected the packages I was using, or I hadn't updated before the issues were spotted and resolved. The last half of that point is important: most Linux distros can be trusted to be left alone for 24 hours without coming back to find they've rebooted themselves, potentially losing work (or if not work, at least context so getting back to work takes longer than it should), without permission. Forcing updates and reboots might be acceptable when they cover a serious remote attack exposure bug, but Windows will reboot itself without permission even for relatively minor updates, and the fact it needs to reboot for so many minor things, where under Linux the updates might just need to restart a daemon or two rather than the whole OS, is irritating. Yes, there are ways to block Windows doing that, but you shouldn't have to fight your OS like that.
  - weberer 10mo ago
    I've never had issues with Debian based distros.
  - PunchyHamster 10mo ago
    My desktop Debian was installed in 2008. I just upgraded it every major release. I am running on Testing so I had some very minor issues (mostly related to proprietary NVIDIA drivers, but even that got better), but at same time my NAS ran on Stable and it was problem-free.
  - prmoustache 10mo ago
    In my case it is Fedora, only problem I had in 10 years was an nvidia driver issue after one uodate on a pro laptop I didn't choose. The only thing I had to do was reboot to the previous kernel and use that n-1 kernel for a few days until the next kernel update. All my personal computers using intel and amd graphic cards have been faultless using same distro for the last decade.
jamesnorden 10mo ago
This is 2000s era FUD.
- jfindper 10mo ago
  Yeah, exactly. We all know that Linux removed all bugs and made themselves bug-proof in the 2010s.
OJFord 10mo ago
Linux works with updates however you want it to - e.g. Arch is a 'rolling release' distro, so compatibility is always expected at the latest of all packages; any update to any package is expected to have been tested with the latest at that time of any other relevant package. Of course bugs occur, sometimes something will be missed, but then it's just an update away to correct it. Or say Debian is not; a release is cut, tested, beta'd, and then made generally available - arguably more testing and a higher chance of finding a compatibility issue, but a slower cycle, potentially harder and slower to fix when something is missed.
PunchyHamster 10mo ago
Linux is very much "pick your poison" Run Debian Stable and it basically doesn't happen - only updates are actual security ones. Run any rolling distro and you basically accept "with newest version comes the newest bugs" And there is a whole bunch of distros between those extremes ,depending on how new you need your software to be (that being said, Debian Testing hits nice mix between "new enough" and "someone actually tested stuff before publishing").
- anal_reactor 10mo ago
  Not only that, but compared to Windows 10, any Linux distro has objectively more bugs. Things like bluetooth not working, GPU-related failures, update issues, all the classics. While the current status of Linux is amazing, I still cannot recommend it to a non-tech person because I know something will fail at some point and then it's going to be my problem.
  - teddyh 10mo ago
    Windows has tons of problem, but you don’t see them. That is, you see the problems, but attribute them to bad hardware. It works like this: Headset does not work on Linux: “This is crap, I’ll tell everybody I know to stay away from Linux!” Headset does not work on Windows: “This is crap, I’ll tell everybody I know to stay away from these headphones!” (Re-post from 2022: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32541772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32541772>)
    - recursive 10mo ago
      But invariably, the hardware does work on Windows. I can't remember the last time I had that problem.
      - eulenteufel 10mo ago
        I can, just recently Windows update installed a firmware update to my network card (without asking) and made it unusable on both Windows and Linux. I had to run a manufacturer tool to get the network adapter to work again.

sph 10mo ago

Use better distros. I haven’t had a broken workstation since 2014 or so.

jack_tripper 10mo ago
Which is that Linux desktop distro that never has issues?
- matsz 10mo ago
  I've been running Arch (on my desktop and servers) for over a decade, and never had issues. Just read their homepage before upgrading.
- sph 10mo ago
  The past 5 years I’ve used the atomic Fedora Silverblue, and I wouldn’t go back to anything else. Last month I have experienced the first major kernel bug in two decades, and all I had to do was reboot into the previous system update. Pretty painless.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- smartmic 10mo ago
  Debian Stable.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  A recent HN submission has 300 comments, many talking about the stability about various distributions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095585 I'm personally partial to Arch Linux, haven't had an issue with upgrades since I moved to it in ~2017, which was the last year I let Ubuntu's dist-upgrade break my work computer.
- pelagicAustral 10mo ago
  Nothing beats the stale, pragmatic platitude of Slackware.
  - mrweasel 10mo ago
    I miss running Slackware, if for no other reason that the weird look you get. For a decade I was running Slackware and a weird "package manager"(1). It was an incredible cool learning environment, but people though it was pretty strange. 1) https://web.archive.org/web/20040730204123/http://pack.sunsite.dk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040730204123/http://pack.sunsi...
    - pelagicAustral 10mo ago
      I had a colleague once that was an absolute anthropomorphic distro. This man was Linux personified, and he literally walked around town with a Slackware live CD at all times. This man refused to use any other operating system, or any other programming language outside D or Erlang. He was pretty fun.
    - prmoustache 10mo ago
      You can still use it. In fact it has never been easier because flatpak (available as a slackbuild) allows you to easily install apps you would have had to compile yourself many years ago.
- dspillett 10mo ago
  I've been using Debian:Stable on servers and occasionally on desktop for many years. I can't say I've ever had a problem due to a bad update. IIRC there have been a couple, but they've not affected the packages I was using, or I hadn't updated before the issues were spotted and resolved. The last half of that point is important: most Linux distros can be trusted to be left alone for 24 hours without coming back to find they've rebooted themselves, potentially losing work (or if not work, at least context so getting back to work takes longer than it should), without permission. Forcing updates and reboots might be acceptable when they cover a serious remote attack exposure bug, but Windows will reboot itself without permission even for relatively minor updates, and the fact it needs to reboot for so many minor things, where under Linux the updates might just need to restart a daemon or two rather than the whole OS, is irritating. Yes, there are ways to block Windows doing that, but you shouldn't have to fight your OS like that.
- weberer 10mo ago
  I've never had issues with Debian based distros.
- PunchyHamster 10mo ago
  My desktop Debian was installed in 2008. I just upgraded it every major release. I am running on Testing so I had some very minor issues (mostly related to proprietary NVIDIA drivers, but even that got better), but at same time my NAS ran on Stable and it was problem-free.
- prmoustache 10mo ago
  In my case it is Fedora, only problem I had in 10 years was an nvidia driver issue after one uodate on a pro laptop I didn't choose. The only thing I had to do was reboot to the previous kernel and use that n-1 kernel for a few days until the next kernel update. All my personal computers using intel and amd graphic cards have been faultless using same distro for the last decade.

jamesnorden 10mo ago

This is 2000s era FUD.

jfindper 10mo ago
Yeah, exactly. We all know that Linux removed all bugs and made themselves bug-proof in the 2010s.

OJFord 10mo ago

Linux works with updates however you want it to - e.g. Arch is a 'rolling release' distro, so compatibility is always expected at the latest of all packages; any update to any package is expected to have been tested with the latest at that time of any other relevant package. Of course bugs occur, sometimes something will be missed, but then it's just an update away to correct it. Or say Debian is not; a release is cut, tested, beta'd, and then made generally available - arguably more testing and a higher chance of finding a compatibility issue, but a slower cycle, potentially harder and slower to fix when something is missed.

PunchyHamster 10mo ago

Linux is very much "pick your poison" Run Debian Stable and it basically doesn't happen - only updates are actual security ones. Run any rolling distro and you basically accept "with newest version comes the newest bugs" And there is a whole bunch of distros between those extremes ,depending on how new you need your software to be (that being said, Debian Testing hits nice mix between "new enough" and "someone actually tested stuff before publishing").

anal_reactor 10mo ago
Not only that, but compared to Windows 10, any Linux distro has objectively more bugs. Things like bluetooth not working, GPU-related failures, update issues, all the classics. While the current status of Linux is amazing, I still cannot recommend it to a non-tech person because I know something will fail at some point and then it's going to be my problem.
- teddyh 10mo ago
  Windows has tons of problem, but you don’t see them. That is, you see the problems, but attribute them to bad hardware. It works like this: Headset does not work on Linux: “This is crap, I’ll tell everybody I know to stay away from Linux!” Headset does not work on Windows: “This is crap, I’ll tell everybody I know to stay away from these headphones!” (Re-post from 2022: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32541772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32541772>)
  - recursive 10mo ago
    But invariably, the hardware does work on Windows. I can't remember the last time I had that problem.
    - eulenteufel 10mo ago
      I can, just recently Windows update installed a firmware update to my network card (without asking) and made it unusable on both Windows and Linux. I had to run a manufacturer tool to get the network adapter to work again.