509
low effort maymay
(programming.dev)
Alt text: O'RLY? generated book cover with a donkey, navy blue accent, header: "It's only free if you don't value your time", title: "Handling Arch Linux Failures", subtitle: "Mom, please cancel my today's agenda!"
I really don't get these memes. In about 9 years of daily use on multiple systems I never had anything break beyond a multitude of failures to update with pacman - all of which could be fixed within minutes - and in the early years having to restart my system every couple of months because it stopped recognizing USB devices - after many rounds of updates mind you. I've had more frequent troubles with windows. How did Arch get this bad rep?
Most likely old folk(tm) I used Arch during the migration from init to systemd (2009-2013). Oh boy did things like to go boom at unforeseen moments. Like random segfaults after package updates, disappearing as suddenly as they started.
But admittedly after ~2013 Arch stabilised extremely compared to before. I remember having discussions around 2014 with people surprised that they didn't have update-introduced issues with their Arch install for 2 years at that time. Most of them never again until today.
Also: new users After aforementioned stabilisation period I got to know recently started Linux users who just did wired shit. Like accidentally deleting all kernel images on a Luks encrypted system or using unusual hardware which by chance Ubuntu or Fedora supported out of the box but would require kernel patches for Arch. They wanted to learn and they did learn but always perceived Arch as "more complicated" than the alternatives. But most of that was imo not the fault of Arch.