Arch Linux

nplatis

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2011-02-22

Posts: 29

Arch installation not regularly updated

I am a happy Arch user on my desktop for almost two years. Updating very regularly, I have had nearly zero issues all this time.

I am writing to gather some opinions on the following: At my University Department we are about to upgrade our student labs' computers (about 30 machines). We currently run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on the old computers, but after two years the installation is starting to show its age (eg. a program required a newer version of Python that is not available on the official repositories of this version). So, having 5-year support is nice, but things in Linux move fast. On the contrary, with Arch you always have the latest and greatest :-)

Thinking about installing Arch on the lab computers, I believe that my only worry is that they will not be updated regularly, but, say, every 3 or 4 months. So, do you think this is feasible or will it lead to problems? Do you have experience with Arch installations that are not updated regularly?

I believe I can manage to update the machines when some update requiring "manual intervention" is announced, but other than that I do expect to update them every 3 or 4 months as I said above.

Last edited by nplatis (2013-03-17 17:48:06)

Pierre

Developer

From: Bonn

Registered: 2004-07-05

Posts: 1,967

Website

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

Updating every 3 months should be OK. Of course keep your eyes on the news and test on one machine first. If you use Arch on your desktop you already know what to expect.

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outro_tipo

Member

Registered: 2013-03-08

Posts: 28

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

edit: did not see post above. statement widrawn

Last edited by outro_tipo (2013-03-17 17:41:15)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,096

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

I'd recommend to use 1 or 2 of the machines as 'test machines' on updating.

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

Are you in charge of these machines? If so, can you not decide the update period yourself? Or is there some particular reason why it has to be 3-4 months?

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

the answer is that it depends. The timeline of the Arch devs might not match up with your 3-4 month windows. If you miss a major update like for eg. systemd, during that window, you might regret having waited. Other minor updates would be ok even if you didn't upgrade for 5 months. You might have to keep up with the Arch dev, and decide whether an update is critical enough to be applied immediately or not. Since you are using Arch, it should not be a problem. But the bottom line is that you might have to violate your 3-4 month upgrade windows at times.

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nplatis

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2011-02-22

Posts: 29

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

Are you in charge of these machines? If so, can you not decide the update period yourself? Or is there some particular reason why it has to be 3-4 months?

Let's say that I will be in charge. There won't be any sysadmin there to update the machines, so I will have to do it. The update period doesn't have to be 3 or 4 months, but that's how much time I want to spend on the task on average.

As I mentioned in the original post, using Arch on my desktop(s) I will be able to identify "difficult" updates and apply them when they come out. What I wanted to know is if anyone has experience with updating Arch not on a normal basis, and at least Pierre says I will be OK.

kardia

Member

From: NH, USA

Registered: 2010-01-15

Posts: 14

Re: Arch installation not regularly updated

Several years ago I ran Arch and only updated every few months. It made the update process a lot more involved at times, since there was a lot more to upgrade, but I read up on all the big stuff beforehand, so I didn't run into any issues. Updating frequently makes it a bit easier, if you ask me, but it is certainly feasible to wait a few months as long as you don't need to install new software in between updates. As others have mentioned, having a test machine or two would be advisable though, and there may be some packages you will want to update immediately, but if you have the flexibility to do that you should be fine.