How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

georgelappies · 2015-05-16 07:13:42

Hi all

Most of the larger fixed release scheduled distros like Ubuntu / OpenSUSE / Fedora / Debian have a thorough testing period whereby all packages are frozen and the system as a whole is tested.

During this period a lot of release stopping bugs are caught and fixed. There are websites that lists these bugs and allows the community to attempt to fix them. If they don't get fixed in time the release may be postponed.

Now who does this testing on a rolling release such as Arch? Is Arch thus by definition not then bound to be bugged until upstream eventually fixes a bug (and hopefully not introduce any new bugs)?

jasonwryan · 2015-05-16 07:26:23

Arch tests for everyone else. Welcome to the head of the queue...

tomk · 2015-05-16 09:27:50

Arch devs and users of the Arch testing repo do the testing, and no, Arch is not "bound to be bugged" - individual applications may be bugged, in which case the bugs will be reported to upstream, and the Arch community may provide assistance with debugging.

If the bug is serious enough, the Arch devs may decide not to package that particular upstream release until it is fixed.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-05-16 10:38:14

You have to ask yourself: who is better at fixing bugs -- the developers of the program or the developers of the downstream distributions?

With Arch, the packages are the newest available and thus have been developed more by the creators of the packages; with other distributions, the packages have been patched by people who did not create the package.

brebs · 2015-05-16 11:01:53

georgelappies wrote:

Now who does this testing

*You* do.

Same with all distros and OSes - there's countless bugs in all of them, which is why there's a continual stream of package updates.

graysky · 2015-05-16 11:12:33

Arch is very stable, just don't try to install it on a kerosene-powered cheese grater.

Soukyuu · 2015-05-16 11:34:19

To be honest, in my experience the fixed release distros were of a much worse quality than arch.
Stuff not working (like the KDE smb sharing plugin), because it wasn't properly configured, or plain missing, or stuck on a buggy version for the next few months.

Arch is better in this regard, because you are taught to configure stuff yourself. And if you screw up, there is always the forums.
Buggy versions tend to come and go pretty fast, as well. And if not, you can just downgrade to the last good version.

scryan · 2015-05-17 00:47:44

georgelappies wrote:

...
During this period a lot of release stopping bugs are caught and fixed. There are websites that lists these bugs and allows the community to attempt to fix them. If they don't get fixed in time the release may be postponed.
Now who does this testing on a rolling release such as Arch? Is Arch thus by definition not then bound to be bugged until upstream eventually fixes a bug (and hopefully not introduce any new bugs)?

Your kinda missing a key piece here in assuming that the fixing of these reported bugs are always and will always be done by the distribution you are using...
If the program is under active development, the fixes for these bugs are most likely going to come from the programs author.
You may get the next newest bug before its fixed, but your probably also going to get that next newest fix as soon as its released too, rather then waiting to have security patches added to older versions of the software by a 3rd party and released to you... This means when bugs do pop up they get smashed quick.

In practice, I have found it introduces a slightly higher chance for a random bug to pop up, but a MUCH higher chance for bugs to get fixed, often times before I even run into them.

thoffmeyer · 2015-05-17 02:48:03

graysky wrote:

Arch is very stable, just don't try to install it on a kerosene-powered cheese grater.

But my kerosene-powered cheese grater runs arch amazing.

Arch is very very stable, when packages are released it goes to the devs who test it enough if it stable then it gets released to everyone in [etc] then if we find bugs we report them.

nomorewindows · 2015-05-18 18:26:39

thoffmeyer wrote:

graysky wrote:
Arch is very stable, just don't try to install it on a kerosene-powered cheese grater.
But my kerosene-powered cheese grater runs arch amazing.
Arch is very very stable, when packages are released it goes to the devs who test it enough if it stable then it gets released to everyone in [etc] then if we find bugs we report them.

I've got to be more careful about the cutting cheese part. I haven't installed Arch on it yet. I seem to be missing a step somewhere.

Durden · 2015-05-18 18:39:03

There are two schools of thought here.

First is the Microsoft way. We've grown accustomed to not trusting upstream because, well, Microsoft sucks at patching their own software. You patch in your environment and suddenly all hell breaks loose. So people wait, and wait, and wait, eventually the early adopters report bugs and the patches get patches until everyone is ok with updating their crap software.

The second school is what I refer to as the Steve Jobs school (I used to work for Apple so take what I say here with a grain of salt). Steve/Apple by no means invented this school of thought but they do seem to be the largest proponents of it. Basically it breaks down like this. You can use the old software, which is still buggy, still has security problems etc, or you can use the new software which is still buggy and still has security problems. Apple opts for the second option, so they really push their user base hard to use the newest versions of things.

Arch sort of falls into the second school in a round-about way. We use Arch and get the latest stuff, which still has bugs. We could go use Debian or Red Hat, but honestly, I use both of those regularly and still deal with patches, reboots, security issues.

I probably wouldn't use Arch on a server just because it would be a little higher maintenance. But on my desktop, I much prefer Arch. Also keep in mind, Arch doesn't modify packages like Ubuntu or Debian etc do. When you install a package, you're getting what upstream intended to put out. So when a problem occurs you can report it directly to upstream and not have to deal with the back and forth of whether the downstream maintainer modified X or Y in the package.

nomorewindows · 2015-05-18 19:16:20

Durden wrote:

I probably wouldn't use Arch on a server just because it would be a little higher maintenance. But on my desktop, I much prefer Arch. Also keep in mind, Arch doesn't modify packages like Ubuntu or Debian etc do. When you install a package, you're getting what upstream intended to put out. So when a problem occurs you can report it directly to upstream and not have to deal with the back and forth of whether the downstream maintainer modified X or Y in the package.

Depends on what kind of server you're trying to use. Updating a kernel package on the server and rebooting, my PXE/NFS/diskless clients will still survive a reboot (and of course, it might be time to reboot them too anyway) until the server comes back up.

ngoonee · 2015-05-19 02:01:00

jasonwryan wrote:

Arch tests for everyone else. Welcome to the head of the queue...

Technically it's not a 'queue', more like a controlled car crash dummy line.

jasonwryan · 2015-05-19 04:01:24

ngoonee wrote:

jasonwryan wrote:
Arch tests for everyone else. Welcome to the head of the queue...
Technically it's not a 'queue', more like a controlled car crash dummy line.

Or, slightly less controlled...

Soukyuu · 2015-05-19 11:06:40

jasonwryan wrote:

ngoonee wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:
Arch tests for everyone else. Welcome to the head of the queue...
Technically it's not a 'queue', more like a controlled car crash dummy line.
Or, slightly less controlled...

You mean, half of the bugs we get are put there intentionally?

Arch Linux

#1 2015-05-16 07:13:42

How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#2 2015-05-16 07:26:23

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#3 2015-05-16 09:27:50

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#4 2015-05-16 10:38:14

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#5 2015-05-16 11:01:53

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#6 2015-05-16 11:12:33

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#7 2015-05-16 11:34:19

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#8 2015-05-17 00:47:44

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#9 2015-05-17 02:48:03

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#10 2015-05-18 18:26:39

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#11 2015-05-18 18:39:03

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#12 2015-05-18 19:16:20

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#13 2015-05-19 02:01:00

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#14 2015-05-19 04:01:24

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

#15 2015-05-19 11:06:40

Re: How can Arch be as stable or more so than fixed release tested distros

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