[Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

JeanLucJ · 2019-03-08 09:09:19

Hello!

I'm an old debian user, and switched to Arch recently when I bought an Asus Ultrabook which needed a very recent kernel.
I do love Archlinux, and intend to keep it.

I have just a concern : I use my laptop at work.
I can live with some unstability (I had none since the 2-3 weeks I used Arch btw), or the occasional bug on a software needing a downgrade, but having a completely broken system for a few days would be catastrophic.

I have read that pacman stores successive versions of packages when upgrading, but needing to find out what is wrong and fixing it myself *may* take a few days.
I also understand that problems are reported on archlinux.org, but Murphy's law dictacte that I will probably upgrade close to a very important work deadline before any warning is posted

So my question : what are the risks? Are such situation where the system is broken very rare? Should I install a dual boot of some sort as a backup plan?

Regards,

Last edited by JeanLucJ (2019-03-08 13:00:12)

Docbroke · 2019-03-08 10:15:36

Arch is quite stable. I have four machines running arch, including my work laptop, since about 3 years. Never had a major breakdown, excluding my own misadventures.

Strider · 2019-03-08 10:29:08

I use Arch for 10 years now. The number times I upgraded my system and on reboot something went wrong, I can count on one hand ...
Also watch the website since if there are general upgrade problems of some sort, a remediation is posted.

Alad · 2019-03-08 11:20:53

There's going to be some sample bias when you ask these questions to Arch users. After all, people whose Arch installation breaks to the point they can't easily repair it, are likely to move to some other distribution or operating system.

What I recommend is to look over the forums/IRC for a while to get a good impression. Then try Arch in a virtual machine and go from there.

Last edited by Alad (2019-03-08 11:21:10)

Morn · 2019-03-08 11:27:37

JeanLucJ wrote:

So my question : what are the risks? Are such situation where the system is broken very rare? Should I install a dual boot of some sort as a backup plan?

Having at least two computers at work you can use (e.g. laptop and a PC) is always a good idea, irrespective of operating systems. Dual-booting does not help if you drop the laptop or it gets stolen. And keeping your important files backed up to a server is also important.

Arch has about the same amount of bad updates like macOS or Windows these days, so yes, a few times a year it happens. So using a mix of different operating systems makes sense IMO because it is unlikely they will all break on the same day.

LindyBalboa · 2019-03-08 11:45:13

In regards to official packages, it is extremely stable. Managing dependencies for AUR programs can get quite hairy at times (looking at you freecad). If you are worried about updates causing problems, always check the front page/forums before any upgrade (it is officially recommended to do this anyways). Perhaps use a LTS kernel.

I'm curious, what line of work are you in that you are using your personal computer?

digitalone · 2019-03-08 12:54:15

Do updates very frequently. In this way you will update low number of packages at time and if something goes wrong you can read pacman log and downgrade the last few packages rather than an high number.

HaCeMei · 2019-03-08 12:59:07

JeanLucJ wrote:

Should I install a dual boot of some sort as a backup plan?

Better keep a working live--medium and know how to chroot . If you don't have the time to solve problems properly just downgrade. Fix things later.

If you need your data for work you better have a sensible backup plan.

Last edited by HaCeMei (2019-03-08 13:02:07)

schard · 2019-03-08 13:35:47

Arch is mostly very stable. I agree in this matter with most of the preceeding posts. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention that we had a major incident in our company some years ago. About 100 of our Arch based digital signage systems went offline after a system upgrade due to a bug in the Linux Kernel. This, howeve,r could have happened with any other distro as well. My point is, if you have critical infrastructure, be sure to thoroughly test any update on identical hardware beforehand. Since the problem on our system was a random kernel freeze on certain Intel CPUs and we only tested on AMD CPUs not affected by that bug.

Trilby · 2019-03-08 13:41:53

Alad wrote:

There's going to be some sample bias when you ask these questions to Arch users. After all, people whose Arch installation breaks to the point they can't easily repair it, are likely to move to some other distribution or operating system.

True, but those people often post here for help first, or at least post a rage-quit-rant here as they leave. One can assess the caliber of questions asked as former users give up on arch. In my assessment it seems clear that a vast majority are clear PEBKAC from those users either failing to read any of the relevant documentation or refusing to accept any helpful input from the community (often both).

So to the OP, if you want a system that "just works" without having to occasionally learn a bit about what's under the hood, then arch will definitely not serve you well. But if you are ready, willing, and able to read and follow clear instructions and learn a bit as you go, I'd say the question wouldn't be when or how often you'll face such breakage, but rather if you ever will.

In 10 years of using arch as my sole OS for both personal and work use (including a couple of servers) I've had many occasions to learn more and more about arch, but I've only once (and on only one of seveal computers) faced any real breakage resulting in stressful OS downtime at work. It was 100% due to my own negligence and foolishness when I ignored a news item and updated a couple hours before an important presentation at work.

I panicked, my heart raced, I invented a few new curse words, then I read a few forum posts from others as foolish as I was, and found and implemented the solution within half an hour of the initial screw up. In 10 years that's the only real issue I can remember, and even that - despite briefly sending me into a panic - was resolved in no time once I absorbed the relevant and always available information from this community.

I can contrast this with a very short time I spend with other "stable" distros under which I would face only minor issues, but those minor issues did not have readily available solutions - so the end result was a far greater distruption in my productivity.

Or I suppose in summary, problems in arch may come up slightly more often than in "stable" distros, but solutions come up in arch way more often than in other distros. So on balance, the probability of having a show-stopping problem is much lower in arch.

Last edited by Trilby (2019-03-08 13:47:26)

Morn · 2019-03-08 13:56:08

Also keep in mind that the definition of stable and unstable heavily depends on your specific workflow and what you are trying to accomplish in Linux.

E.g. the recent pip breakage (now fixed) was a major disaster for a Python user. So for me that was an event of major workflow-breaking instability in Arch, but other users who do not rely on Python would not even have noticed. To some, unstable means "does not boot", but I think it is all about workflow.

JeanLucJ · 2019-03-08 14:18:34

Thanks for all the replies.

I was probably a bit paranoid after reading the warnings about the risks of a rolling release.
I will keep the things as they are.

To reply to the question about my line of work : I have activities involving contract and team management, and also sales.
I mostly write documents or slides either for offers or for various committees and meetup with my teams or my customers.
The only company ressources I need are printers and shared drives which are easy to set up, and the rest (Salesforces, our ERP...) is accessible with any internet browser.
The laptops furnished by my company are quite big, while I move very often to different places.
I do prefer to have my own light-weighted computer, with a better battery, and an OS I can customize any way I like. I'm also partial to the opensource philosophy, and a bit of a geek

Last edited by JeanLucJ (2019-03-08 14:19:28)

Morn · 2019-03-08 14:28:34

JeanLucJ wrote:

I mostly write documents or slides either for offers or for various committees and meetup with my teams or my customers.

Each time I try to do those things in LibreOffice on Linux, I end up using Pages, Numbers, or Keynote on a Mac because they are easier to use and I can get things done more quickly than with LibreOffice's complicated interface. So I am not sure how happy you will be with Linux for these kinds of office tasks.

JeanLucJ · 2019-03-08 15:20:34

I use Linux for my work since at least 4 years, and have debian on my home computer since years, so I'm sure I'll be happy with Arch
I agree that Libreoffice has still a long way to go, especially Writer / Impress (Calc has better usability IMO)

For my part, I use either Google Docs or wine + MS Office. Flame me

Under linux, I have very handy tools like pdftk, Tasque, Desktop switching with GNOME, console search to find that damn file that contains "Fixed price" and was modified like a month ago, keepassx, the occasional sed to mass fix something in a file ... that I really love.
I don't know Mac OS, but I really felt the gain in time when I switched from windows to linux on my work computer.

Morn · 2019-03-08 15:40:37

JeanLucJ wrote:

For my part, I use either Google Docs or wine + MS Office. Flame me

It's certainly much better than fighting LibreOffice! Linux has other strengths such as LyX and LaTeX, but those are more for scientific documents and probably overkill for normal office stuff.

JeanLucJ wrote:

Under linux, I have very handy tools like pdftk, Tasque, Desktop switching with GNOME, console search to find that damn file that contains "Fixed price" and was modified like a month ago, keepassx, the occasional sed to mass fix something in a file ... that I really love.
I don't know Mac OS, but I really felt the gain in time when I switched from windows to linux on my work computer.

The Mac is great for email, calendaring, and office work in general, so I think a Mac laptop and a Linux (or e.g. FreeBSD/Solaris) desktop are the perfect combination. The operating systems are similar, yet also different in many ways and complement each other well in terms of the software that runs on them.

mmdamin · 2019-03-08 16:57:51

Morn wrote:

JeanLucJ wrote:
For my part, I use either Google Docs or wine + MS Office. Flame me
It's certainly much better than fighting LibreOffice! Linux has other strengths such as LyX and LaTeX, but those are more for scientific documents and probably overkill for normal office stuff.
JeanLucJ wrote:
Under linux, I have very handy tools like pdftk, Tasque, Desktop switching with GNOME, console search to find that damn file that contains "Fixed price" and was modified like a month ago, keepassx, the occasional sed to mass fix something in a file ... that I really love.
I don't know Mac OS, but I really felt the gain in time when I switched from windows to linux on my work computer.
The Mac is great for email, calendaring, and office work in general, so I think a Mac laptop and a Linux (or e.g. FreeBSD/Solaris) desktop are the perfect combination. The operating systems are similar, yet also different in many ways and complement each other well in terms of the software that runs on them.

I've just read about mac and macOS and I love them a lot, how ever I don't have enough money to buy a mac and I scared of data losing on installing a hacked x86 version of mac. macOS is based on Darwin which is derived from FreeBSD, means you can install everything you can install on a Unix machine, homebrew and mac ports will help you. Also you can compile program with gcc and gnu make and install it by hand. macOS is most user friendly Unix compatible OS exist. I just moved to (from Windows 10 to ubuntu then arch) linux just for a better speed and power of commandline shells and package managers, which windows lack them but macOS inherited them from BSD. (best things a person can inherit from his father)

Morn · 2019-03-08 17:27:24

mmdamin wrote:

I've just read about mac and macOS and I love them a lot, how ever I don't have enough money to buy a mac and I scared of data losing on installing a hacked x86 version of mac. macOS is based on Darwin which is derived from FreeBSD, means you can install everything you can install on a Unix machine, homebrew and mac ports will help you. Also you can compile program with gcc and gnu make and install it by hand. macOS is most user friendly Unix compatible OS exist. I just moved to (from Windows 10 to ubuntu then arch) linux just for a better speed and power of commandline shells and package managers, which windows lack them but macOS inherited them from BSD. (best things a person can inherit from his father)

Well, macOS/OS X was never really 100% Unix/BSD due to its roots in NeXTSTEP, but Linux is now copying the macOS approach in some ways (systemd = launchd, PulseAudio = Core Audio), so I suppose the same is true for Linux. And I agree, while Homebrew is very nice, pacman, especially combined with the AUR, is still better.

I suppose if people now generally use web apps for email/calendaring/contacts and office documents, that is actually good for Linux, because it has always been pretty weak in those areas. Students in the US now seem to favor Chromebooks over MacBooks, so it looks like Linux is slowly winning over the Mac.

Maybe you could get yourself a second-hand MacBook? I'm still using my late-2012 MacBook Pro and it runs the latest OS! The newer MBP models have these strange butterfly keyboards that can get blocked by tiny specks of dust, so (wholly apart from the high Apple prices) I am not sure if I would even want a current-gen MacBook Pro...

mmdamin · 2019-03-08 18:55:59

Morn wrote:

mmdamin wrote:
I've just read about mac and macOS and I love them a lot, how ever I don't have enough money to buy a mac and I scared of data losing on installing a hacked x86 version of mac. macOS is based on Darwin which is derived from FreeBSD, means you can install everything you can install on a Unix machine, homebrew and mac ports will help you. Also you can compile program with gcc and gnu make and install it by hand. macOS is most user friendly Unix compatible OS exist. I just moved to (from Windows 10 to ubuntu then arch) linux just for a better speed and power of commandline shells and package managers, which windows lack them but macOS inherited them from BSD. (best things a person can inherit from his father)
Well, macOS/OS X was never really 100% Unix/BSD due to its roots in NeXTSTEP, but Linux is now copying the macOS approach in some ways (systemd = launchd, PulseAudio = Core Audio), so I suppose the same is true for Linux. And I agree, while Homebrew is very nice, pacman, especially combined with the AUR, is still better.
I suppose if people now generally use web apps for email/calendaring/contacts and office documents, that is actually good for Linux, because it has always been pretty weak in those areas. Students in the US now seem to favor Chromebooks over MacBooks, so it looks like Linux is slowly winning over the Mac.
Maybe you could get yourself a second-hand MacBook? I'm still using my late-2012 MacBook Pro and it runs the latest OS! The newer MBP models have these strange butterfly keyboards that can get blocked by tiny specks of dust, so (wholly apart from the high Apple prices) I am not sure if I would even want a current-gen MacBook Pro...

thank you,
pacman is best package manager I've used and it's main reason why I'm using arch instead of other distros, however I enjoy more with mac desktop and none of linux desktops can be as best as mac os even windows. some are very mimic like deepin and some are better just for exprience of customizing by script, awesome and i3 are really awesome, but still mac os has a better user exprience.
I'm in high school and still I don't have a good phone (I'm writing this from nokia in opera mini browser), my parents won't let me buy a mac book 'till I go college. chrome book also has a good experience but its known to spy and and you can't do something on it that you can do on linux.

Last edited by mmdamin (2019-03-08 19:01:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2019-03-08 09:09:19

[Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#2 2019-03-08 10:15:36

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#3 2019-03-08 10:29:08

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#4 2019-03-08 11:20:53

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#5 2019-03-08 11:27:37

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#6 2019-03-08 11:45:13

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#7 2019-03-08 12:54:15

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#8 2019-03-08 12:59:07

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#9 2019-03-08 13:35:47

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#10 2019-03-08 13:41:53

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#11 2019-03-08 13:56:08

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#12 2019-03-08 14:18:34

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#13 2019-03-08 14:28:34

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#14 2019-03-08 15:20:34

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#15 2019-03-08 15:40:37

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#16 2019-03-08 16:57:51

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#17 2019-03-08 17:27:24

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

#18 2019-03-08 18:55:59

Re: [Solved] How unstable can Arch be?

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