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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

I've had plenty of issues with Arch updates.

In fact; I have a laptop right now that hasn't received updates because there's a shared object that has been removed that `yay` depends on.

(this was from a long time ago).

I generally think that updates of the mainstream distro's like Debian will definitely *NOT* brick your system in almost any circumstance, and arch tends to be somewhat solid, but every once in a while something dire happens with arch which would make me not agree with the fact that updates are always seamless.

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AUR issues are not arch issues

"AUR packages are user-produced content. These PKGBUILDs are completely unofficial and have not been thoroughly vetted. Any use of the provided files is at your own risk."

Usually just rebuilding a AUR package will fix most issues.

I would say it's fair, but then it leads to an interesting problem that could happen.

Build a tiny core, ask the community to extend: never be liable for any issue because important packages that are essentially required aren't part of the core and thus any criticism is invalid.

Not saying that's happening here, but it could happen by this definition.

But, ok, there are more issues anyway, for example it's pretty common that you have to update archlinux-keychain before an upgrade can succeed because the signing keys have rotated and someone has already packaged an update to something with the new key. That is definitely base.

Arch isn't liable regardless. It's a community driven project run by volunteers without contracts.

>it's pretty common that you have to update archlinux-keychain before an upgrade can succeed because the signing keys

"Since 2022-07-29, the archlinux-keyring-wkd-sync.service and the associated systemd timer have been created and enabled by default"

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Package_signing#Upgr...

Listen, dude, this isn’t litigation.

The shit is broken sometimes, it’s ok, but we are here to be intellectually curious and have a discussion.

Lying to people about how broken it can be to update in reality is the opposite of that.

We aren’t here to pull down arch or the community; just here to spit facts.

I disagree that having to update a package which is also now a automatic service qualifies as broken. Sure there are issues but they are usually either self induced e.g. AUR, easily fixable e.g. keyring update or broadcasted publicly with a fix e.g. archnews.

At the end of the day arch is firmly a do it yourself distro where some user intervention is expected.

Right so,

> I've also been using Linux for years (Arch, btw) and never had an update break my install or cause issues

Is an anecdote that is worthy of being attacked with my own, given the context that people might come away thinking that Arch updates do not break their system.. right?

Right, just make sure that anecdote actually applies.

Yeah, arch is basically unusable without AUR, so that is semantic difference without grounding in reality. Many people use Arch becuase of its package manager.

That is maybe how you feel but it obviously works just fine without it otherwise it would not be explicitly separated. I do not have more than a handful AUR packages none of which are essential or without alternative.

>Many people use Arch because of its package manager

True pacman is great but that has nothing to do with the AUR.

I've had far more Ubuntu distro upgrades break than succeed, and often without solutions online other than reinstall. Haven't had that issue with Arch since 2011. I use Ubuntu for work and Arch for personal so I've basically been using both full time for over a decade. Anecdotes be anecdotes

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