“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.
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.
“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).
Does the headphone use bad vendor/product ID? Or how does a wireless dongle without driver panicking a kernel?
Or is there just a broken driver in the kernel?
Broken driver. It now seemingly attempts to read the current battery status, and while doing so literally locks up (not sure what “locking” means in context of a Kernel, but it’s somehow involved).
Interesting! Do you have checked the kernel log (there should be a backup from last session somehow iirc) , and do you know the name of the kernel module as well as your kernel version?
I want to check that code out if I see where it fails exactly
Or have you documented that issue already somewhere?
Already reported with a patch incoming.
😍🫡thank you for your service
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.
horribly unstable
I think that’s unfair. Despite the meme once you get it going it’s pretty stable.
finicky and time-consuming
At first. But then once you’re setup you can coast on years of just doing updates on my experience.
I’m not suggesting anyone who isn’t excited to pick and configure all the packages on your system try it, to be clear.
It is unstable in the actual sense becahse its rolling release. However its usually pretty reliable.
Running arch for years now. If you keep it up to date and don’t lean on the aur too much its very stable.
Arch was my first choice precisely because of the learning curve. As soon as nothing works with the other distros the user is completely overwhelmed because just like on Windows he is kept stupid and away from bash etc…
No, with every other “used” friendly distro I had such massive problems… and their wikis and other help end at the arch wiki anyway.
Edit: Btw I don’t want to talk down the other distributions in any way. It’s just my personal opinion. Especially since Arch Linux is not out for stability because of the rolling release, users naturally save themselves the trouble with distributions that are primarily out for stability.
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.
Grub entry missing and Nvidia driver installation not going smoothly did happen to me, though the former is somewhat independent of the distro.
Yes.
I just say glibc
Ironically enough ive had less nvidia drivers breaking on arch than on any other distro
always has been
I mean, I’m a relative gnu / linux noob, but so far Endeavour has been awesome.
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.
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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.
Both deserve our attention and donations, please don’t try to divert people from one important FOSS project to another.
90% of distros could vanish tomorrow and nothing of value would be lost. Without the software they are packaging, the ecosystem would vanish.
Without distros there would be no Linux desktop ecosystem to begin with. Also who’s to say what true value is?
Every distro comes with people who don’t just maintain their own stuff, but contribute to the whole ecosystem. It doesn’t need to be a Debian or Arch to be worth something.
So again, please don’t start bickering about what’s most important. It all got its place, and someone calling for donations for good thing A does not undermine good thing B. All good things need attention.
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.
Supply chain attacks and software patches
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!
I would say Fedora, but it has a really annoying OOM freezing issue.
Is that why my server keeps locking up?
I’m not sure if I can donate to LixOS, yet…
