Youtube commentator under Linux video:

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

Youtube commentator under Linux video:
"Thing is, #Linux doesn't have a history of getting system updates that break your whole system"

I don't know in what world this person is living but where is the fucking portal to it? There are super stable Linux distros out there, but speaking generally (that includes Arch Linux and alike) some distros just *love* to break.

(This is *not* a request to send me unsolicited "very stable distro" recommendations, lol)

divVerent

@[email protected] Arch especially. One of the few distros that declare it a feature that before updating you better check their website for any manual steps to do beforehand or else it won't even boot.

The only other distro that I ever "upgraded" into a non bootable state was Ubuntu when it still used upstart - it ended up failing to mount my encrypted root file system (but "mountall" on the emergency shell did it). I could not fix it and eventually gave up and reinstalled. And got the exact same breakage one upgrade later again, at which point I ditched Ubuntu.

And this is just the "serious" breakages that required me to fix it using external boot media. Minor breakages that break one service (including graphical user interface) not counted as fixing those is usually quite routine to me.

Nex Carter

@Natanox afaik you already use suse? Isn't that almost as stable as "Debian"?

nickapos :clubtwit:

@Natanox sure but you are not running production workloads on unstable versions of distros. So this comment is very much true for the majority of production infrastructure. Never mind what you do on your development or gaming systems.

Linus Probert

@Natanox Your mistake is thinking that Linux only comprises desktop distros used by power users with custom out of source kernel modules installed.

Julius Schwartzenberg - Юліус

@Natanox it seems valid here to distinguish between the kernel Linux and operating systems built around it. I have seen people boot ancient RHEL versions with modern kernels as Torvalds cares a lot about not breaking userland.

GNU on the other hand has a stronger focus on source compatibility and much less on binary compatibility. The result of this is clearly visible with various operating systems based on GNU.

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@jschwart True. I'd generally prefer for people to stop refering to basically anything as just "Linux", but at least as "<distroname> Linux". The differences are just so phenomenally big by now, mingling together something like Arch or Alpine with Mint or Ubuntu doesn't make any sense. Let alone to distros made by hardware vendors like Pop_OS, TuxedoOS or SlimbookOS.

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@liquidityc I neither believe that nor did I say something like it. Read again, that YT commentator spoke about "Linux" in general, so the whole range of distros. Not just the ones you now apparently want to immediately cherry-pick to make that argument work.

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@nickapos Some distros are inherently unstable, not just their nightly / beta / unstable variants. For Arch Linux you literally have to read its RSS feed, it broke more than just once in the time I used it (ironically the person in the video even used Arch, so mentioning it in particular makes sense). And I don't even want to mention how frequently Gnome loves to die.

I'd again like to point out how generalised the original comment was. And it was in context of desktop usage.

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@NexCarter Yes, I use Tumbleweed and it's super stable for me. However that comment is broadly speaking about "Linux", i.e. all distros including inherently unstable ones like Arch.

It's also hilarious how I immediately get replies of multiple people trying to defend "Linux" in some way. One even immediately went straight to being personal. I should've started a timer.

Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@divVerent If I had a nickel for every time something crashed back on Arch I could build a whole castle. It was great to learn a lot (partially because it forces you to do so), but in my opinion nobody should use it as daily driver.

The value of a stable system - or even one maintained by those who also maintain your hardware, like those that come with devices from Slimbook or Tuxedo - can't be overstated. I'm convinced that recommendations for Arch to newcomers have done a lot of harm.

Nex Carter

@Natanox to the first part: I guess I understood your post just fine to. Me. It was just a comment about "at least some look kinda stable to. Me"

My endeavour is also fine. not in a "I never had any problems" kinda way but in a "at least it didn't break rn"