"We do not break userspace." ~ Linus Torvalds
I would always argue that any distribution which does not prioritize this principle is a hobby project, not a serious distribution for end users.
Which is fine, hobby projects are good, but they should be labeled accordingly to properly set user expectations.
"Kernel regressions" was a little bit too generalizing in this meme. Technically drivers that became part of the kernel can also regress, as recently seen by users of Corsair Void wireless headsets (an unpatched 6.13 kernel is panicing once the headset adapter is plugged in).
Linus likes to break driver interfaces every other Tuesday though. Meaning you can get stuck on an old kernel version, depending on your hardware. This happens pretty regularly for ARM based boards for example.
So Arch is a terrible distro
YES
but also resoundingly NO. arch's purpose is what it is, its an awesome modular tinker system where you have to do some manual intevention sometimes.
if you want a plug n play system (like me nowadays) you dont need to bother with ever, get stuff like mint ubuntu pop...
This. It's a good distro to base something else on (like SteamOS), and therefore good to learn how distros work without the need to even now how software as a whole works (that would be Gentoo).
It's however horribly unstable, finicky and time-consuming as a daily driver as all the tiny adjustments and pre-configuration other distros make are missing by design.
It's good if you want to become the soldier.
Has any of that happened on the average Arch in the past years? The only thing I have seen is an email once or twice a year asking to run a manual operation to fix a package migration.
Yes.
All the time and I'd also add issues caused by bugs introduced with updates. Using Gnome you have your addons break with every new version and don't get me started on Plasma 6. What a horrendous piece of crap. I still low key hate Plasma 6 even today.
I just say glibc
always has been
Ironically enough ive had less nvidia drivers breaking on arch than on any other distro
It might be trash, but it's our trash.
But seriously, sometimes it does get a bit annoying. Hunting for optional dependencies and missing libraries and whatnot...
I like both Arch and Manjaro, I like the ability to pick the right tool for the job. I can tweak and better understand my system with Arch, I can be trouble-free and productive with Manjaro.
I mean, I'm a relative gnu / linux noob, but so far Endeavour has been awesome.
Manual firmware updates
As someone who's work laptop no longer has Wi-Fi since the automatic firmware update, I like my updates to be manual.
I’m going to piggyback off your comment to take a moment to complain about System76 computers, which I own and enjoy. That being said I wanted to run Fedora instead of PopOS.
It’s super frustrating to me that many of my old computers could automatically do firmware updates using fwupd, but to update System76 laptops I have to install from a copr repo their system firmware update service.
The funny thing is they do appear to support fwupd, I assume they just aren’t maintaining it.
A Linux laptop for Linux people, but they’ve managed to set it up where you don’t get the best experience unless you’re running PopOS. It’s little frustrations like this that make me want to go back to a Del laptop for my next computer.
Even though I only really use it on one machine, (mnt pocket) I've contributed repeatedly to Debian. It's the bedrock upon which so much of the Linux ecosystem is built upon.
Debian and Arch are both the most important community-driven distributions for the entirety of Linux ecosystem.
However, I feel like they are both reasonably funded already, and supported by big names.
In my opinion, it is important to support the smaller distributions that many people overlook.
Sometimes you get your own grenade to take care of as a user.
donates to Redmond
😾
We should have a Linux holiday
Realistic proposal in Finland I'd assume. As a nation they must be quite proud of Torvalds, enough to celebrate his contribution to modern technology and Linux in general.
it's the day of the Linux desktop!
Supply chain attacks and software patches
I would say Fedora, but it has a really annoying OOM freezing issue.
Is that why my server keeps locking up?
Instead of donating to the distro, consider donating directly to the software projects you're using.
Distros write a little software as well, but mostly distribute software written by others.
I'm not sure if I can donate to LixOS, yet...
